Why does Sisyphus go fishing?

And so we reach our final challenge of 2024, that being to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend, as in Claire Scott’s poem “Scheherazade at the Doctor’s Office.”

Every day this month (year) I have gone to work on the first thing that comes to my mind on waking. I had already woken once today before the prompt was posted and opened my mental envelope to find a letter from loneliness had been delivered. Not to be put off by dark emotion, I looked up lonely characters in myth and was given options such as Medusa, Prometheus, Penelope, Atlas and Cassandra, but I chose none of these. I’ve long been a fan of Albert Camus, so when I stumbled across his ideas on Sisyphus I felt duty bound to push this rock up the hill.

….

The chilled morning draught heaves the water’s edge,
Flutes of slate and silver serrate the surface of the pond,
Beneath the pantheon dome of his great green umbrella,
Sisyphus sits.

Sisyphus sits; once again.
Sisyphus sits; but not in vain.

But for him, the clay-bed banks would be barren,
But for him, there would be no one to take on the task,
His task,
The daily task he submits himself to with grace.

Motionless he sits, alone, and stares at the water.
Painted in the lonely tones of abandoned furniture,
Wrapped in the solitude of a dying star,
He begins his futile search for fate’s finale.

Lifting his rod in his hand and arching his back; he casts.
The cat-whip swish of his line breaks the air,
A swash erupts at the surface just below the razor- edged lime green leaves of reeds,
His lead weight, hook and bait sink to the bottom; and wait.

And he waits,

And waits,

And waits.

This is his fate.

To sit each day, a victim of his own choices, This is where he comes
Where he waits to answer the other voices.

The ones that ask him “Why? Why even try?”

To them, he raises a smile, and then replies.

Here, I am the master of my own destiny.
While you see me fight with this fruitless plight,
I know this pond to be empty of life.
This punishment you think you witness, this failed existence,
This is where I sit and think, and rest and step myself back from the brink,

For here,

Here, I know the outcome,
I am assured my catch will be none,
My charge can never be done;
But the dominion is mine.

I have no expectation, other than,
Satisfaction.
I will not be thwarted by regret,
Neither will I forsake my task,
Because this,
This is all I ask,
To be granted my space and place in this world,
Of which we enter with one cast,
For just one day
That can never last.