Corey
Crowning Glory
by Joanne Corey

“The silver-haired head is a crown of glory…” Proverbs 16:31*

Friends recognize me
in a crowded theater
down the street
across the restaurant
among the congregation

Strangers comment
how beautiful
how they wish
theirs looked the same

I smile
remember the first silver
that appeared
among the brown
before I was in high school
multiplied after my daughters were born
until at fifty just a bit
of brown was left

Then I let it grow
past my shoulders
down my back
in silver waves
finally

*Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

PHOTO: A sunny Sunday morning in the backyard, February 2015.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: For years, my hairstylist tried to convince me to dye my hair to cover the silver that was becoming noticeable in my twenties and accelerated through my thirties and forties, but I always declined. I am not the type to fuss with hair and makeup and I loved the silver color that was replacing the dark brown. She said that while men with graying hair look distinguished, women just look old, but I appreciated looking older. After I graduated from college, I was working in music ministry, assisting the organist/choirmaster. When I would be among the treble choir, whose members were in elementary and middle school, people would mistake me for one of them. I appreciated that a touch of silver at my temples might keep me from being confused with 12-year-olds. Times have changed. Now, one of the hottest shades for young women to color their hair is silver. Will I begin to be mistaken for a younger woman again?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne Corey lives and writes in Vestal, New York, where she is active with the Binghamton Poetry Project, Bunn Hill Poets, and Sappho’s Circle. She is pleased to return to the Silver Birch Press blog in 2016 after appearing in five series in 2015. She invites you to visit her eclectic blog, Top of JC’s Mind.