Grey and red (one of four)

Made first but presented last: a dress of grey-brown hair, my favourite shade. I bought all I could get of this beautiful (because it touches me) double-tinted hair from two local shops a year ago, still have got some left, kept aside/safe for a new project. Colour of the present is red red red, I think red and crochet red (in wool and wire and hair) and write red, even dreamed red last week, but more about that another day. Grey-brown is the colour of ageing, of years turning churning, of memories accumulating and dislodging, of old age catching up with childhood remembered, of going back in time in mind while time seems to move forward faster and faster - towards the end. Hair greying and thinning on head and body, slowness and sagging of body but hopefully not of mind.
It’s also the hair of an old rangy cat the fur of which has been torn and shed and grown back unevenly. The tint of an old winter-coat that has kept its owner warm over the years. Of speckled bird’s eggs and the nest they lie in. Of ashes which brings me back to the colour red – the flames that consumed.