Washing My Mother's Body

A beautifully illustrated edition of Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s poem “Washing My Mother’s Body,” which offers a way through grief when the loss appears unbearable. As I wash my mother’s face, I tell her how beautiful she is, how brave, how her beauty and bravery live on in her grandchildren. Her face is relaxed, peaceful. Her earth memory body has not left yet, but when I see her the next day, embalmed and in the casket in the funeral home, it will be gone. Where does it go? Through lyrical prose