Stubborn

I like a spring that will not sing,

a spring that hoards tall stacks 

of mountain snow and won’t let go, 

a spring that fills the village streets

with hungry bears that cannot glean

a single blade of tender grass beneath the snow.

There is a wide-stanced ice-capped 

mountain in me that will not yield,

will not let loose the wild waters 

to thirsty fields nor fill the falls.

What to make of such a mass

immovable? Was it born or built?

The mountain stands at the center 

of the picture, listening through snowdrifts. 

Published in Radar Poetry, Issue 41, 2025

John Henry Twachtman, Icebound (c. 1889)

Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago