Poetry

Spring 2011

Mary Legato Brownell

Those Who Come for Time

In what quickening place does time reside,
The hidden part of earth most like pure light,
Where winter shelters itself—the snow's white
Fire, the boundaries of ice set aside.
Or perhaps where summer's bright blood, inside
The quiet veins of heat, lifts time's long night
To its skin, and sees the deepening flight
Of sleep that darkness cannot seem to hide.
Think then of summer in its urgency,
The passion that spring makes no choice about.
Imagine the voice of an old mourning
Dove. She holds the world's forgiven beauty
In her quiet arms, and time's blue breath caught
Beneath the worn dark tunnel of her wing.