Augury

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

Inspired by Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XLII ("I Hunt For A Sign Of You")

I sought your glance behind the indolent eyes of others

whose voices were raw and harsh, unlike the honeyed rivers

I found waiting beneath the sweeter swells of your curled mouth. 

For so many long years (or were they but moments?),

I drifted alone upon tumultuous waves of desire -

I sought only the silk of your hands, 

weaving through the threads of my own, 

to create new cloth to hide our fierce longing - 

for ripe murmurs to rise from each other's throats,

such delicate fruits to savor long past dusk.

Your knowing smile crept beneath the fallow soil of my heart,

seeding it with divine laughter, hallowed tears.

Bending your boughs to my timid touch,

the forest surges and lifts these whispers 

in vast mythologies of song,

a sea of ancient butterflies discovering new shores.