Request for Music

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

Even my words seem smaller today -
more compressed, 

languishing in brevity - a brief sigh,

rather than a prolonged moan.

Sorrow has hollowed me out -
a tree stump lost in an ancient forest,
sheltering only moss instead of holding aloft

these rustling leaves of autumn floating on a tender wind

as night falls sweetly under the tacit approval
of a luminous moon, awaiting some harvest.

I am not yet numb -

only tingling, as if half-asleep.