Arrogance – A Found Poem

Well, when you’re climbing,
everything’s against you.
Gravity, wind and weather
altitude, time, geography.

You’re nothing but a spec
on the face of a monolithe,
one that’s been where it is
since the dawn of time.

But you don’t care
about any of that.

If you did, you wouldn’t be there.
But you are there, daring
disaster and death
and all of it

a little flea
climbing up a mountain.

A mountain.

What is that,
if not arrogance?

Excerpt from The Winter Rose, by Jennifer Donnelly, 2006, pg 560.  Re-written in poetic form as seen here, by Jodine Derena Butler, 2012.  Copyright permission pending.