In the Grand Manner

They have shown her facing, from a range of barley

at times and from the patio. She wrings a sprig

of mint in a walled garden; behold, the dimple that

none reckoned on, careless burdens of plums, of parsley.

I thank those gentlemen: many an old master

is needed if there shall be love. I thank Velasquez

more: for a woman turned away may be imposed

without disparagement in a prospect of grandeur.

Where this high cliff joins the deep sunlight I see you

beside me spread aside in the buoyant deer-moss;

I sit cross-legged nibbling juniper berries

and I call you my Louella now, now Ella Lou.

Far down from one rim is the bay with flocks of teal,

and we might look down shafts of cedar the other way;

I feel a privileged one who waits, remembering

the special pleasure of youth is of self-denial.

Since Velasquez and the masters have hexed my eyes

I see you now even in this northern grandeur;

following the hip I watch the flank’s retirement

and watch the nape declining from the crescent shoulder.

But where your shoulder ripples back to fill the arm

is a slight plump area, probably nameless:

in all but rarest postures that form vanishes

into wherever you withdraw inopportune breaths.

You might not wonder it is there I, stretching forward,

beseeching you be motionless, hold the wide kiss;

I wonder mightily for my part for what purpose

have I stretched a thousand miles between the two of us.

Copyright Credit: Richard Emil Braun, “In the Grand Manner” from Children Passing. Copyright © 1962 by Richard Emil Braun. Used by permission of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.

Source: Children Passing (University of Texas Press, 1962)