Time is shadowless there

Running rest-day ...

... here's another poem from Eavan Boland, this time from her own 1990 collection; Outside History - as pictured.


Mountain Time

Time is shadowless there: mornings re-occur
only as enchantments, only as time for her

to watch berries ripen by on the mountain ash;
for him, at a short distance from her, to catch fish.

Afterwards, darkness will be only what is left of
a mouth after kissing or a hand laced in a hand;

a branch; a river; will be what is lost of words
as they turn to silences and then to sleep. Yet

when they leave the mountain what he will remember is
the rowan trees: that blemish, that scarlet. She will think of

the arc of the salmon after sudden capture -
its glitter a larceny of daylight on slate.