Spring Mountain

by Barbara Santucci


A woman walks up the mountain,
rock after rock, a weaving of bones.
Rushing streams carve its massive
skeleton into cliffs and hollows.
The waters wind through her muscles
soothing the hard places of winter.

A woman stumbles as she climbs.
The mountain pants in the trees,
gasping for breath
as the sun unburies its flesh from snow.
Light quivers white, then gold
on its gnarled spine.

A woman rests on the mountain’s brow
where a lake trembles in the wind.
The waters receive lilies and fish,
alive again in the earth’s thaw.
Her outstretched body melts
into the blue of its gentian meadow.


* * * * *

Barbara Santucci has a Masters In Writing for Children from Vermont University and has published three picture books with the W. B. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers and several poems in Adult anthologies. Her work as a poet and freelance artist has allowed her to look closely at nature and all its beauty.