On Hair and Feathers

 

My hair rides my head
like a protest.
It goes its own way
         and refuses to be tamed.        .
Wild Woman's sense of fashion has been,
at best, mixed: jeans

and wolf t-shirts, running shoes, frizzy curls.

Looks I admire tend to the wild side:

dreads, long grey pony tails and beards on men,

on aging women, that certain look, au naturel,
that sets us apart from the
twin sweater-set crowd
with their tight and tidy blue curls:

kinda alternative, unconventional,

still Being Who We Are.

As we pass, we exchange smiles,

and toss our manes.

I met an old hippy over in Coombs.

We recognized each other
by our unruly hair.

He told me in Haight-Ashbury,

back in the day, he wore

Puss In Boots leather waders,

with buckles, right up to his thighs.

Those were the days, my friend.
Why did they ever end?

I so admired them, back then,

those paisley/patchouli hippies
on Fourth Avenue, serenely

living outside all the rules,

while I lived my cramped, married-woman,
beaten-down existence

just one block over.

But soon enough, I was free,

chewed my leg off to escape the trap,

bought my first pair of jeans,

grew my hair long,

began to live.

My running shoes carried me far,

through ten years in Tofino,

among other refugees from the 60's,

heart and hair equally wild,

completely whole,

drenched in joy and sea-spray.

Now I consort with trees, wolves,

druids and dying things.

I drape myself in old man's beard,

wear moss slippers and clothing made of bark.

As Old Woman of the Woods, I come into my own,

talk to owls and decorate my hair

only with feathers.

For Susan's way cool prompt at What's Going On? Hair as a symbol of rebellion.  
My hair has never behaved. Smiles.