Mourning Hair Wreaths by Carol Louise Moon

What is grief to me?

Cat is gone, but she'll return.

Was this her black hair?

Fingers run through strands of reed;

the basket weaver's busy.

It was pneumonia

took her. We gathered 'round her.

Gray hair was her pride--

said she'd earned every gray strand.

Now, what to do with

her pride, her hair, her mem'ry.

Our den wall stands cold

begging a photo of her.

Let's run our fingers

through her long hair that we might

know her still, though she has passed.

Grief wreaths are fashioned

using hair of the deceased.

Instructions are clear:

Weave while you are grieving. This

helps in fashioning your grief.

    small wren makes nest--twigs

    woven, cradling wren eggs--

    new bonds are forming







Carol Louise Moon is a Simulated Client Actor, and a poet who has work published in Suisun Valley Review (CA), California Quarterly, Everything Stops and Listens (Ohio), Time of Singing (PA), Peeking Cat Poetry Mag (UK) and Sacramento Voices Anthologies.