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The Endless Hunching of Gravity's Shoudler
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,711
The Endless Hunching of Gravity's Shoulder
Every day, I keep going back to the shed where the boards are stored, leaning up against the walls at leisure, waiting their turn to help shore up the crumbling hillside out behind the house. I take them out one at a time and walk them, hefted on my shoulder, over to where the lupine have already lost their violet blossoms and readied their seeds like little dried peas, waiting for the next turn of spring.
I exam the wall with a sharp eye for details lost in the scree that crumbles and sifts and shakes itself loose so very slightly when no one is watching. With hands grown weak from too much wear, I work the boards into place as best I can, urging them into angles to maximize their resistance to the endless hunching of gravity’s shoulder.
Wedged now and worked into place, the boards grow in number each day and their cumulative gathering becomes a ragged patchwork that seeks to fail at every turn. Ubiquitous body aches and a wary satisfaction of having done what one believes or perhaps even feels must be done urges me to seek less strenuous work or find some other distraction but always, in the back of my mind, I see the Inevitable slowly moving in forward time.
This is how it is each day and though the building up of boards seems as continuous and steady as clock work, the weight of time and mass continues to chalk up greater and greater numbers against them with each passing day.
Slowly, over time, the vanity of believing begins to be replaced by longer and longer stretches of ennui kindly interrupted by the friendly pass of a well intentioned smile, the scent of jasmine and long passages of music that obliterate all other thought. Worries settle into the bones like a continuous but comfortable ache. Anger no longer flairs but only merely flickers now and again. And the will to push beyond all limits eases with the gentle pull of entropy’s flow and persistence.
And then one day I simply walked away.
Every day, I keep going back to the shed where the boards are stored, leaning up against the walls at leisure, waiting their turn to help shore up the crumbling hillside out behind the house. I take them out one at a time and walk them, hefted on my shoulder, over to where the lupine have already lost their violet blossoms and readied their seeds like little dried peas, waiting for the next turn of spring.
I exam the wall with a sharp eye for details lost in the scree that crumbles and sifts and shakes itself loose so very slightly when no one is watching. With hands grown weak from too much wear, I work the boards into place as best I can, urging them into angles to maximize their resistance to the endless hunching of gravity’s shoulder.
Wedged now and worked into place, the boards grow in number each day and their cumulative gathering becomes a ragged patchwork that seeks to fail at every turn. Ubiquitous body aches and a wary satisfaction of having done what one believes or perhaps even feels must be done urges me to seek less strenuous work or find some other distraction but always, in the back of my mind, I see the Inevitable slowly moving in forward time.
This is how it is each day and though the building up of boards seems as continuous and steady as clock work, the weight of time and mass continues to chalk up greater and greater numbers against them with each passing day.
Slowly, over time, the vanity of believing begins to be replaced by longer and longer stretches of ennui kindly interrupted by the friendly pass of a well intentioned smile, the scent of jasmine and long passages of music that obliterate all other thought. Worries settle into the bones like a continuous but comfortable ache. Anger no longer flairs but only merely flickers now and again. And the will to push beyond all limits eases with the gentle pull of entropy’s flow and persistence.
And then one day I simply walked away.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
So are you staying in prose?