Like a child, the earth's going to sleep, or so the story goes. But I'm not tired, it says. And the mother says, You may not be tired but I'm tired - Louise Glück

a woman will return, looking for the girl she was

First Memory

Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was — for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.

The Mountain

My students look at me expectantly.
I explain to them that the life of art is a life
of endless labor. Their expressions
hardly change; they need to know
a little more about endless labor.
So I tell them the story of Sisyphus,
how he was doomed to push
a rock up a mountain, knowing nothing
would come of this effort
but that he would repeat it
indefinitely. I tell them
there is joy in this, in the artist’s life,
that one eludes
judgment, and as I speak
I am secretly pushing a rock myself,
slyly pushing it up the steep
face of a mountain. Why do I lie
to these children? They aren’t listening,
they aren’t deceived, their fingers
tapping at the wooden desks — So I retract
the myth; I tell them it occurs
in hell, and that the artist lies
because he is obsessed with attainment,
that he perceives the summit
as that place where he will live forever,
a place about to be
transformed by his burden: with every breath,
I am standing at the top of the mountain.
Both my hands are free. And the rock has added
height to the mountain.