An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire

                                                                                 LaBohem Brown


In a package of minutes there is this We.
How beautiful.
Merry foreigners in our morning,
we laugh, we touch each other, 
are responsible props and posts.

A physical light is in the room.

Because the world is at the window
we cannot wonder very long.

You rise. Although
genial, you are in yourself again.
I observe
your direct and respectable stride.
You are direct and self-accepting as a lion
in Afrikan velvet. You are level, lean,
remote.


There is a moment in Camaraderie
when interruption is not to be understood.
I cannot bear an interruption.
This is the shining joy;
the time of not-to-end.

On the street we smile.
We go
in different directions
down the imperturbable street.
Copyright Credit: Gwendolyn Brooks, "An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire" from Blacks. Copyright © 1987 by Gwendolyn Brooks.  Reprinted by permission of Estate of Gwendolyn Brooks.
Source: Blacks (Third World Press, 1987)