“Where do we learn to work like this?”

From Sisyphus and his endless, uphill rock-rolling where we end up 
tired as the smell of last night’s cod hanging in the kitchen
or done like a dung beetle after rolling the last dung ball of the day.
Imagine letting the ball fall and go rolling into the sea
where ocean waves release upon the shore 
like the unclenching of a fist that has unlearned 
the slow steps of a pallbearer treading again and again 
upon the sacred ways, red as worn, sanctuary carpet 
in the morning light.  To skip like a flower girl 
throwing rose petals left and right and into the face 
of the ring-bearer who carries his symbol of infinite 
love, careful not to let it drop and bust, a shattered jar
of rainbow-colored gumballs, where chance
could have them bounce and reel under a pew 
and disturb the slow, rolling of bones turning over
in the graves of hard-working saints, long-dead and gone.