Labors

Pressure washing concrete walls,

water spraying luminous and grand,

like a waterfall befuddled by gravity.

It's almost peaceful, slowly raking smooth

the mossy islands and paint chips,

of a concrete zen garden.

Much more zen than the snorting,

guzzling machine would initially let on,

much more zen than the art of carpentry 

would seem to embrace.

Slipping between pressure washing

and the book about Aristotle

tutoring Alexander in Macedonia,

his unmoored frustration

at feeling misplaced,

reciting myths and bad science with boy-kings.

Slipping between daydreams

and the Lamentations of the Chronically Underemployed,

trying never to surrender completely 

the pleasure of anger

to the pleasant emptiness 

of the task at hand.