Solitude

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

                   — Inspired by "That One" by Jorge Luis Borges

Nights we spend in pensive thought lost 

beneath moon's somber glance are innumerable; 

luna's lexicon is indecipherable - her geography, gone astray - 

her tears, a trail of mournful mist, 

remorse for unconsummated love of the sun.

Without a single fervent touch passing between them,

only a residual gleam of memory, they will bear no children,

leave no kin behind to immortalize their path, sing their legacies aloft.

They decry those lovers who praise such solitude, 

for their pens spill such passion 

which the sun and moon long to know, yet know they cannot. 

As one rises, the other descends, catching only a glimpse 

of each other as they fill the sky reluctantly with their presence.

They would barter for oblivion just to have one long, slow dance - 

to hold the shining silk of rapture between them

for only a moment.