# Magic

*Of Sisyphus and Laundry and Interpretative Dance*

By [Existential Liturgies](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies) · 2025-01-11

poetry, magic, liturgy, existentialism, mystery

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Unearned, she looks at me like a God

I sigh, pick up a sweater

Left arm, right arm, torso, hood

Add it to the pile

My folding laundry--to her--is interpretive dance

She watches - mouth gaping, neck craned

As one looks at a monument

Pants this time

The movements to her are mesmerizing

Laundry is the boulder to my Sisyphus

An unending, relentless task I am doomed to repeat until wealth or old age release me

She witnesses the ancient ritual; steeped in magic and mystery

An art I have taken years to perfect

And

What if

When I look at stars

Neck craned

Mouth gaping

Witnessing an ancient universe; steeped in time and mystery

What if a weary warden guides the moon round again

A tired mother gently breathes on planets to coax them round the galaxy

What if the stars twinkle because a yawning custodian stokes their bright burning fires?

Endless tasks, shaped by the perceiver

Perhaps, then, _all_ is gift and magic and mystery

Sisyphus: keeper of his own key

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*Originally published on [Existential Liturgies](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/magic)*