Louise Glück - The Mountain lyrics

My students look at me expectantly. I explain to them that the life of art is a life of endless labor. Their expressions hardly change; they need to know a little more about endless labor. So I tell them the story of Sisyphus, how he was doomed to push a rock up a mountain, knowing nothing would come of this effort but that he would repeat it indefinitely. I tell them there is joy in this, in the artist's life, that one eludes judgement, and as I speak I am secretly pushing a rock myself, slyly pushing it up the steep face of a mountain. Why do I lie to these children? They aren't listening, they aren't deceived, their fingers tapping at the wooden desks-- So I retract the myth; I tell them it occurs in hell, and that the artist lies because he is obsessed with attainment, that he perceives as the summit at that place where he will live forever, a place about to be transformed by his burden: with every breath, I am standing at the top of the mountain. Both my hands are free. And the rock has added height to the mountain.