Braid the Raven Hair

I do not remember when I took this photo of you. I know it was next to Lake Anna. You were perhaps 11 years old.

That was 13 or so years ago. You left us, we left you, and all around us changed on July 18, 2005. But what changed most was within us, and we kept it away from all around us.

But you are around me with your photos I have on every wall of my room. And this photo, in its simplicity, has always reminded me of a poem by William Scheweck Gilbert (don’t ask me why I have read his work from the late 1890s…). It is entitled “Braid the Raven Hair”:

Braid the raven hair,

Weave the supple tress,

Deck the maiden fair

In her loveliness;

                         Sit with downcast eye,

                         Let it brim with dew;

                          Try if you can cry,

                          We will do so, too.

Your raven dark hair and downcast eye is what I often remember. And I still cry, even if you cannot.

July 15, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017