Finespun

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

She crept through penumbrae, a demure cereus 

opening carved portals to the blindness of night.

Conceived by an ingenuous rebellion, 

she was an inconspicuous thief, pocketing mere moments 

as if they were crumbs, never meaning to leave a trail.

Her decline into obsolescence was near-perfect. 

These illusions of her glissade were mythic in proportion, 

as indecipherable as Sanskrit buried beneath hennaed sand.

She purchased a lien on slowly walking backwards 

and casually purloined any memory of existence. 

She had no intention 

of becoming anyone's precious, gasping bird, 

clutched within a fragile origami existence. 

She girded herself for a battle that would not come, 

secure in the knowledge that her cupboards held only dust.

The tenacious white heat of her sinew 

turned toward water's edge, 

where driftwood cautiously waned with a startling creak 

and crack of ancient things splintering - 

dew evaporated with any remaining desire for cessation.

Silence grew thick and dangerous with wisteria. 

The moon's pulse was frail with famine, its murky swells, indeterminate. 

Stars punctured this sculptured quietude with forgotten echoes.

It was a bold and reckless harvest - 

no one knew her secret name as she unfurled into fog.

She unwillingly writhed beneath lucidity's austere currents, 

trying in vain to remember the sea.

The darkness shuddered soothingly 

with the low rustle of a violet shroud

as she secured mortar between those burnished bricks 

that separated her from an achingly fragrant world.

C'mon Home

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

unkissed, we,

absented from bees' solo thrum and birds so blue,

the lack of your hand is unwanted shade

under a bare tree's icy tendrils in winter;

I cannot bloom thus. Piercing the night

is the sound of cold metal as the engine wails,

needing warmth and fuel.

...I mean unfathomable is such darkness

when your feet are padding somewhere other than here.

There is no rhythm, 

only the mercilessly sluggard ticking of a trembling clock.

When you are gone, there is no whirr.

Beyond the Tide — Inspired by Rilke

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

             — Inspired by "To Holderlin" by Rainer Maria Rilke

Struggles with intimacy 

are inevitable battles to avoid the profane 

as we attempt to define the glorious 

with inadequacies of language and undermined thought - 

the spirit knows, 

but cannot say what moves it along a brisk current

toward the sea, its source. 

Filtered through the mist, light may linger, yet we shall not - 

we are cast beneath waves of shadows both cautious and subdued,

coaxed far from the safety of shore into unfathomable depths

where we hope we might find mercy waiting -

our faith in its ebb and flow delivers slow permutations 

as we surge and swell, caught within 

separations caused by an unnoticed undertow.

We are merely inhabiting these shells, after all - 

once burgeoning with promise and divinity, 

suddenly emptied of truth, pulsating on a bank nearby,

invisible to touch and languid in hearts 

which soon forget the empyreal significance 

of grace.

Beyond Sound or Silence: Inspired by Octavio Paz

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

Time cannot prevent 

nor dissuade 

our inevitable yearning. 

We grasp an infinite palette of starlight 

when we clasp our hands together; 

we are found in this subtle darkness, 

lost in our delight. 

We breathe each other's souls 

and drink each other's hearts 

with quiet hunger 

and ravenous feasting, 

splendor luminous in our seeking eyes. 

We dance slowly 

to the sweetest music 

we could never imagine, 

so beautiful are these realized dreams. 

You touch my mouth with yours so gently, 

I am moved beyond the borders of weeping. 

These are sacred moments sculpted 

into memory's garden of wildflowers 

that will never fade 

or fall 

into the ashes of forgetting.

Carol's Alchemy

         — Inspired by "To Wanda, Who Knows I Know She Knows I Know" by Carol Desjarlais

Leaves curl in quiet acknowledgement 

as you walk this tenacious path, 

vivid and verdant smiles unfurl

from Nature's trust for one such as you —

she who will not be named only 

by rainbowed hues, bold shades rising slowly 

from sweet grass, precise and precious fragrances 

far too lovely to describe with frail and futile words.

Although our eyes have never met, our hands have not yet held,  

our souls recognize sacred, sorrowed intimacies of sisters 

cut from similar broad cloth, carved from sturdy stone; 

intricate weavings become and becalm revelations 

as we peruse possibilities of the day, 

elaborate patterns which whisper secret wildness 

as we pursue remnants of the night — 

a shock of starlight falls swiftly 

from the infinite sky's deep darkness, 

bringing us to our knees before this familiar shrine.

We need not speak in currencies of sunlight,

for silence is dear and will not be bartered.

No frigid winter could restrain elusive birdsong 

or detain unexpected arrivals of butterflies 

carrying honey-heavy messages from afar.

No sweltering summer could turn our harboring hearts 

into hardened clay, to be cracked apart, piece by piece, 

broken into something less than they could ever be.

When dusk comes to us on slippered feet, 

our shuttered breaths slow into sultry sighs, 

anticipations of moon's rhythmic courting — 

we gently grasp these tender things as songs 

we hear and thus, must share beyond solitude.

Across changing landscapes and evolutions of moments,

we have carried each other's curses aloft 

and brightly borne the blessings of both.

We discover what we've learned as wisdom forms 

from pearls gathered from seas too deep to fathom,

potpourri harvested from fields too wide to measure.

Beneath this thin canvas, 

fierce fires burn — 

embers settle as ash drifts into memory;  

our fingers shadow-dance, ache with echos, 

etching hieroglyphs as we await 

subtle promises of dreams to come — 

silvered streams and strands of light remain — 

close enough to endure simple gestures of grace, 

distant enough to summon extraordinary courage.

Genealogy

My father's eyes held embers, sudden sparks —

flames consumed him years before I knew or tasted his salt, 

poured his grief through my own, as deep and dark as his;

we glared or ignored each other, 

neither willing to relinquish ground.

My mother's eyes were oceanic,

tides shifting to and fro,

touching shore and surging away again

just as quickly. I gathered glistening shells 

and listened closely to her echoes.

We are products of our environment,

experiments of genetic mutations gone astray, 

hybrids formed by both betrayal and faith,

our fragrance diminished by dusk.

We become what we did not dare to dream,

forsaking our wishes for glimpses of dying stars — 

we moan, then sigh in resignation, in recognition.

Shards from ancient moments 

embedded beneath our flesh are memories 

as flaccid as stagnant water, a seething green;

once we were buoyant and boisterous, lustrous as kith and kin,

patient, weary and waiting for an ominous tilt to right ourselves,

to mend the bent structures of our existence.

We inherited this crumbling Sanskrit,

its lexicon long since buried 

under shifting sand. 

We murmur incoherent sounds

as our heavy hearts bubble and boil, 

then wonder why we are misunderstood,

why we cannot grasp logic or reason.

The ache and arch of miles are inconsequential —

we need only mention the impertinent and penitent journey.

In the (Quiet, Cool) Jazz of Morning

The Echo of What Remains Collected Poems of Wanda Lea Brayton

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." 

                                            — Louis Armstrong

In the (quiet, cool) jazz of morning, 

they come (again), searching for sustenance and substance,

for unexpected kindness, for remains of stale bread; 

their heads twitching from side to side (and back) again, 

dark eyes ever watchful, wings ever ready

for sudden flight away from (or toward) 

something (or somewhere) else. 

Their tiny barbed feet move swiftly, 

more accustomed to jitterbug (or waltz) than tango;

they hook onto branches when storms threaten

their perch, their nest filled with (fragile eggs or)

hungry beaks chirping demands to fly, to discover,

to retrieve small and necessary things - perhaps

a ribbon or a worm, depending on their distinctive, instinctive need.

These diminutive, courageous birds call into the unseen beyond

and gather a swarm to ward off an arrogant hawk

attempting to invade their territories. Disgruntled, the hawk 

abandons his pride, huffing his shame as he seeks an open field, 

an unattended prairie, distant from this fierce flock of bold warriors.

On the (other) dark side of the glass, I sit and observe as they 

(twirl) (swirl) curl away from (or toward) early fragmented light,

their jagged flight path known only to themselves, 

this porch a mere haven for odd moments where remnants 

of last night's dinner become a feast for the wild, 

a smorgasbord of sonorous proportions.

They leave without looking back.