The Wedding Gown

The wedding Gown She stepped boldly, stoically erect to the strains of the wedding march, radiant in the resplendent beauty of her gown and poetic demeanor. The long silken train, the work of tens of thousands of weavers harvesting in the trees of Changsha to highlight the sanctity of the moment and the purity of body as she spoke, “I do”. The daughter She lay sleeping gently doing the little sucking moves which every new babe makes with her tiny lips. Her once wrinkled face now smooth with traces of resemblance to her mother. Unafraid on his arm her eyes reflecting from the white silken train made from a wedding gown already hallowed by promises kept. She looked up and smiled as the water placed on her head promised things of which she knew nothing. The marriage She stood in the vestibule waiting for the crescendo to signal her entrance. Trembling slightly from anticipation she fidgeted with the train of her long white gown. That same white gown from Hunan province, a tad shorter now to accommodate so long ago, her christening. She touched it lovingly, knowing that tomorrow, she would carry another to feel its texture, smooth as baby’s breath. The grand daughter She was above the pulpit of the church. From some place of which she did not know, she peered down upon a small casket not open. Within which she knew her earthly flesh lay draped in silk from Changsha. She somehow sensed the family bond and the import of having a constant to lean on. Lying upon the same soft weave her mother felt, the generations entwined helplessly impressed into its folds, a grandmother, a mother, and yet another babe into this life line. Surely the expectations of man, do often go astray, and nothing lasts but the silk from Changsha. ~//~ For Catie's Free Verse Frenzy contest