Waiting with the Mountain
by Courtney Siebring
WAITING WITH THE MOUNTAIN
I am acquainted with the waiting room.
The receptionist is familiar as
the foil in my nightstand novel is.
I obediently sit, but I permit
my imagination to spill green tea,
onto gray carpet and nobody minds.
It will be rid with bleach and silent prayers.
I must imagine while inside this room.
Its designer gave up on that task.
He only placed one matted photograph
on blunt gray walls—a mountain bold and strong,
framed sensibly and with a single word
below its foothills. There to guide my thoughts
to maxims that remake us: PERSEVERE.
I sit before it and renew my vows.
Stare at the mountain and the word beneath.
I move my lips in whispered promises.
I will embody all it asks of me;
persevere throughout the grueling climb,
live life in all caps as the font suggests,
become a master of my destiny.
Each time I come back to the waiting room
with tea in hand, I crave this ritual
as earnestly as I hope not to see,
a mountain framed, there looking back at me.
I imagine—once again—because I must,
the receptionist behind her frosted glass
has staged a coup d’etat against the gray.
She’s exchanged the mountain for “Ophelia,”
afloat in flowers among weeping reeds.
Palms up, surrender, her eyes gazing out
beyond the gray into expansive skies.
Her lips, they part, I ponder what she’d say
if there were breath left in her lovely lungs.
Perhaps I’ll find fixed in the mountain’s place
Van Gogh’s “Siesta,” soothing blues and golds.
His need for rest, so strong, he had to take
this fleeting moment from another’s brush.
But, here I am again, gray room, your guest.
A mountain set before me—and promises.
Every pain to reach its summit has been dashed
by my need; by my own fragility.
Eyes drop closed, and my confession rises
from the shelter of my tightening ribcage.
Shot through the heart like Kahlo’s “Wounded Deer,”
it begins to leak out its precious stain.
I beg Picasso’s Period Azul
to provide the courage now required of me
to feel this single tear track down my cheek,
and tell the truth about my present state.
I keep my eyes shut tightly so to see
Munch’s “Scream” projected full color on my mind.
Admission breaks free from my parted lips:
I AM NOT THE MOUNTAIN.
It pours from me
like the flood enveloping Ophelia.
It is blue and gold and anything but gray.
I am not the mountain,
I say again,
to the Rock that is higher than me.
Like any of Cassatt’s pastel children
held in their mother’s gently painted arms,
I bend, surrender now into His safety.
The impression of His love has me undone.
He calls my name, as my name is now called.
It echoes here inside the waiting room.
COURTNEY SIEBRING
Courtney Siebring is curious about the intersection between art and faith. She's published two children's books with Paraclete Press and poetry with The Way Back to Ourselves, The Anselm Society, and Focus on the Family. Most of her time is spent curating her daughter's education and creating.