A Strict Separation

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

                           — Inspired by "People" by D.H. Lawrence

i.

Observation becomes more defined with a strict separation

parting the waters, keeping each shoreline distinct.

I see the shells drifting on waves, 

their final destinations gathering their purpose - 

I do not need to listen to every song, 

every echo they offer to know their endings,

to feel their bones scattered across the forlorn sand.

It is easier to remain aloof from the masses,

to be drenched by their individual fragrances 

if we keep space as an ally, 

if we keep our hearts safe from sinking 

beneath another's fierce tide.

ii.

Solitude is a requirement for sanctuary,

a necessary purging from shadows creeping within

without light to pierce this illusion of darkness.

Days turn slowly into nights
and I am certain of less with each moment -
some call this "wisdom".

All I know is this:

my edges fade more with each movement
and pages curl with disuse;
my form will be forgotten -

a wisp of something
that once stood tall among bent reeds,
that once swayed and curled in ink, 

no matter how fierce the wind.

The Marriage of Reason

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

First, there were tulips drenched in somber shades of lavender -

not dirges, but hymns.

He wandered into her field of morose darknesses

carrying moonstruck moments and songs of stars.

She held out her hand, accepting his tithes of laughter

as her new religion, lacking in hypocrisy 

and pompous displays of needfulness.

Second, he swathed shadows from her room 

with fire, unwanted remnants from her distant past

which cluttered spaces where she might breathe.

She solemnly inhaled the first free air she’d known in years,

smiling slightly at his theatrical gestures of gallantry

and determination.

Third, he gathered her hair between his trembling fingers,

inhaling its meadowed fragrances, deep with loam

and decried its absence from his slumber.

She was startled by his propensity for declaration

and merely leaned forward

for a single kiss, a lifetime

brutal in its beauty.

To Save My Own Life

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

They split the cocoon

and severed the butterfly at my throat,

its beauty beating frantically against onslaughts of pain.

They tore it out slowly as it silently screamed.

I'd been told I was crazy

for submitting to the surgeon's careless scalpel.

I thought it would be crazier not to,

considering the only other alternative was death. 

I was only 31 at the time,

positive I was not meant for such an inglorious ending,

sure that life would provide

many more butterflies to enchant me

with their whispered songs of survival.

Sometimes, I feel the ghostly fluttering near my heart -

the minute fragment of wing they left behind,

a reminder of the chrysalis I once knew

before the arrival of the scythe...

The Rendering (Inspired by Neruda)

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

She wore a chatoyant veil draped in mourning, 

knelt bowed and broken by the sympathetic stream; 

her tears flowed toward an ocean 

she could not see, could only imagine 

as a vast whirlpool of infinity where dreams were lost.

Summer grasped Autumn's swift hand 

as they fled these dormant fields,

the browning glen where swallows once sweetly trilled; 

now, only crisp silence swells.

There were pearls hanging from otherwise-barren boughs,

reminiscences of leaves and their consoling raptures.

I watched from a distance, youthful and unknowing - 

the depths of emotion swayed me in my tracks, 

brought upon me a dizziness, 

an indiscernible swoon my inevitable beneath-the-sky-twirling 

had not delivered before that moment.

There was a keening on the wind, reverberations 

of flutes and mandolins crept from ancient times, surrounding me 

as I fell to the earth, eyes filled with sudden, unexpected tears.

Poetry had found me in the gloaming of dusk, 

laughing wildly, burst open and glistening like ripened fruit, 

ready for the insolent consummation of flames.

To Forsake the Edges of a Madding Crowd

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

                     "And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, 

                      books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

                      — William Shakespeare 

The branches have mouths which mutter and sigh, 

bending boughs to touch and remember the earth, 

bereft of the very soil they arose from, 

searching for broad expanses of sky to surge into, shaking their leaves 

as though in penance or martyrdom for their unnamed cause. 

There are elaborate thoughts floating upon 

charging, changing currents of a wild river, 

unspoken words to be listened to and heeded 

if one only knows how to open their masked sounds 

and decipher their various languages. 

The stones know, but remain silent. 

Their path is not to lead, but to stay - 

their religions consist of endurance, of hidden wisdom. 

They know the allure of water and its slow, subtle effects. 

To forsake the edges of a madding crowd is to seek 

and find a peacefulness not availed in a public square - 

the noiselessness allows your inner voice to question, 

to enrapture its way around your bowed neck 

and lift your eyes to the nature of what surrounds you 

within the dense forest, the innocent glade, 

the valleys spilling their boldness everywhere. 

The Facade of Mourning: for Anne Sexton

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

I grow weary of these distinctions

between pale and shadow.

Burgeoning forth like a morose masquerade,

lilies strewn about as sad, dying leaves,

we are no longer immune to silence. 

No one hears these murmured words,

not even the rapturous soil. 

Fingers point everywhere but backwards,

where they belong. It was our own doing,

this fragmentation we became.

Heave your stones

toward granite headboards, if you must,

but do not diminish my gathering of bouquets 

for the still breathing, for the as yet unborn. 

They need ferocious petals more than crumbs of earth.

The final damned real estate can wait its turn;

I refuse to sing this lie.

The Mourning After: Inspired by Anne Sexton

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

My flesh peeled by grief,

I ached pale bones until the moon went out,

and did not return,

did not even leave the keys on the empty-drawered dresser.

You were gone, gone, gone

long before you actually left,

casually crawling into that horrid plain box 

they planted you in,

no sun to bronze you anymore,

no stone to mark your absence.

They moved what was left of me into a small room

where you could not fit,

no matter how I tried to slide you in

as a stolen memory, barricaded from view.

You were unceremoniously evicted

from your rightful place in my heart

and it was too broken and I was too lost to find you. 

They tore up the only map I had.

They fed me lies with every meal

and I swallowed them whole, 

thinking it was sustenance instead of the poisoned apples

they grew in the backyard especially for me.

They shredded your canvases and sold the frames

so I could not speak of how bright your colors once were.

They gave me a box of crayons, all gray, 

and told me to draw what I could recall.

The page was blank on purpose.

I refused to elaborate on anything they only wanted to burn.

I kept my sorrow deep and hid the shovels

from their greedy, grasping fingers

so I would one day remember to forget

we never said goodbye.