John Henry Twachtman, Icebound, c. 1889
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
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.