On our way up toward the peak
we encountered Sisyphus,
that trickster doomed to roll his stone
eternally to rise and fail.

And he leaned calmer than you'd guess
accepting his cyclicity
without anger or regret
yet purposeful, intent, and then

that wondering: what it was like
- meridian, descent, release -
to never once repeat the task.
His tragedy, to have to ask,

and ours, too: we never sense
those crusades through infinity
endeavoring past endlessness,
determined indeterminate,

with grace enough to damn a curse
and higher mind not to rehearse
potentials left, as none should know,
returned, reborn, when others go.