Cure What Ails You

I once wrote a poem with this title for Ms. Gillian Gausboel.

Dear Janey and Doretta, thank you for teaching me how to make lemon-ginger-honey brew. My throat is on fiy-ah, but this hot sludge helps. When I'm back in town you'll have to teach me how to make congee.

I have always really liked the idea of offical mourning, particularly as represented in dress. Most particularly, the black armband. Mourning is such a strange sensation. When I'm doing it, I feel like the world should stop for a moment and acknowledge that something is gone from the world and it's a different place now. I feel like wearing some sort of sign around my neck? A sandwich board, perchance? I also like the idea the there is a mourning period, which, unless you are Queen Victoria, has a set time span of un-alright-ness that then turns into alright-ness.

It's not so much that I have faith in the remedies, but that I have faith in the faith in the remedies. Or: the value of ceremony.