WOMEN

I decided to put a henna on my hair,
to acknowledge my long, arduous
second coming to womanhood –
or was it my third, it depends
on which set of data you prefer.
My hair had lost its sheen.
It wasn’t the gray that bothered me
but the lack of reflected light,
from being wrapped in bandanas
or covered with hats,
protected from the sun so that
it would not grow brittle.
For two summers I thought
this was the thing to do,
to tie and bind my hair,
to keep it from the wind,
the sky.
But it had only grown dull,
so I decided, perhaps, a henna
could bring its radiance back.
When the vernal equinox came
I was broke as usual
and couldn’t afford one,
but I had to do something
in honor of this second coming
– and spring.
So I parted it on the side,
the way I did as a girl,
and found the color was still there,
only buried underneath,
all the colors of my hair,
which no one notices
unless they are very close.
There was the sun, the rainbow
in the colors of my hair,
the rust,
the red,
the gold,
the burnt umber,
that somehow fuse
to make plain brown.

(stanza break)

When you came,
this minor alteration
was somehow astounding.
You said I looked like myself,
this did not sound like the objective.
I see myself – a woman
who should have been named Sara,
this image of women
I have tried so long
to bury, to burn.

Women who wore bonnets,
their hair tied back
to be more efficient,
women who drove wagons
across the plains,
the only movement
in their lives
the waving wheat,
sun glinting through
the crisp stalks,
their hair growing dull,
their faces as plain
as the panhandle.

Women who went west
driving wagons,
their grandmother’s
bone china cracking
in the crates,
women who went west,
leading men who
rode behind them,
women who walked miles for water,
and waited through quiet lives
for love and pink silk dresses
that never came.

Women who smoked in secret
and hid their tears until midnight,
women who went west,
who found beauty in the panhandle
and learned to love the rust
color of Texas grass.
Women who were not tough,
who took up guns if they had to,
women who did what had to be done,
women who were resilient
as the wheat,
women who were supple
and could survive
the winds.

(stanza break) Women who learned to like
liquor and calloused lives,
who lived plain days
on the hard earth,
planting sweet peas each spring,
getting back rust,
women whose only rainbow
was in their hair,
whose only gold was
in the swaying wheat,
women with feet and hands
that worked,
waiting years
for an indoor pump
to come from Chicago.

Women who walked
miles for water,
feeding their families,
a nation, on nothing,
who lived on brown flour gravy
and pretended it was beef,
women who thought they were
headed for Oregon,
who never got past Texas,
who learned to love
the color rust,
who found rainbows
in their hair,
in the land where
it never rains.