If I am lucky
I will have the chance
To strain
With all my spirit,
All my body,
All my mind,
And all my soul
Against the great machine that will not move.
If I am lucky enough
To be flayed,
Flames licking the skin,
Arrows cutting the skin,
Rough stone bruising the shoulder,
To pull that stone on up that steep old hill?
If I am lucky enough
To raise,
After sweating,
Bleeding, bruising,
Cursing, despairing,
To raise that stone up high:
Happy I will be when I go die.
Here's to Difficult things,
Not to easy things,
Not to Things done without thought,
Not done without Intuition.
Here is to the Hero,
She who swims under the great blue ocean,
Who casts her offspring to the stars
For them to live and die and meet their fate.
For these are things that can never be forgotten,
Even when man is gone,
When earth is gone,
When time is gone:
The Difficult Things that were done can never be erased.