A More Solemn Letting Go

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

Veiled Woman 1910 Imogen Cunningham

Melodies unweave crisped notes above loosely wrapped, confused flesh

to help soothe and subdue them into their darkly-writhing graves - 

even the newly dead require a rite of passage, 

a more solemn letting go 

than a mere scattering of petals would imply.

They feel the weight of a clouded sky pressing down,

the force of gravity constraining their brittle bones beneath the soil

as they still remember the warmth of sunlight 

upon their now paled, gray faces.

Do not speak unkindly or step over them without pause,

for they will know the depths of your presence soon enough -

you will not be able to plead or barter your way out 

of these evolutionary circles, 

away from this binding, terrible truth.

So I am wandering looking for new deities,

sweeping dirt to and fro, seeking a softer place to kneel

than memory will offer this gasped grinding of grief,

this swift severing of halves from wholes,

this etching of echoes carving caves into heaving, heavy hearts

that know of no better place to release their barbed-wire laughter,

their cautious aspects of mourning, each stuttered step acknowledging 

such fiery, distant drums.