J P Dancing Bear

Sisyphus Has Time For One More Question
J.P. Dancing Bear

Listen, the rock was enough, I had dreams
that maybe I was wearing it down, the stone-
dust on my hands made hope hundreds
of years might grind it to a pebble—
a bit of grit in a bird's gut to help digest
the diet of seed and worm. So I lift, push,
shoulder the boulder higher up the grade
almost happy for its shade in summer sun.
Wisp and hush of my palms on the rough
surface sounds like so many unhappy dead.
It was never the rock that emptied my chest
but the gods pushing back on the other side.

J. P. Dancing Bear's first book of poems is Billy Last Crow (Turning Point Books, 2004). His second book of poems, Conflicted Light , will be published in 2007 by Salmon Poetry. He is the host of “Out of Our Minds” a weekly poetry program on public radio station KKUP, the editor of The American Poetry Journal and the independent literary press, Dream Horse Press. His poems have appeared in the National Poetry Review, Shenandoah, Mississippi Review and New Orleans Review.