No Need for Flower Girls

There will be no need today
for customs of the bereaved,
no need for lovely flower girls

to dress in angelic white,
or carry comforting bouquets.
There will be no need to walk

across fields for flowers
growing wild, perchance like
ones growing in the battlefield

whereupon they say he fell.
Carolina Lilies bow solemnly
as Featherbells slowly knell,

today they will remain where
Snow on the Mountain gently nod,
and Mourning Doves coo and cry out.

There will be no need for them
to arch a slow processional way,
his casket will not be coming by.

Page 42, The Thorny Truth and Their Civil War (The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina)
--Karen Kay Knauss (A gift from Tom at the 9th NC PATCON )