Impossible Labors

There's always someone we applaud:
for endurance, for courage, resilience
in the face of terrible fortune. Go back 
to the old tales and find her counterpart:
the girl who spun and swept until the room
turned dizzy with gold, the girl who tufted
feathers and turned them into shirts without
holes. She poured water into jars not designed
to hold, carried wind and fire in paper, 
counted millet and wheat, pebbles and
pearls. No one asked why she must keep
doing this. No one asked her to stop.
The rules were already in place, but
being rules surely they could be broken,
amended, rewritten, undone. Tell her 
to put down the spindle, tell her 
to throw the needle into the hay.
Tell her rest shouldn't be 
a door to another test.