That started out by being about something a little relatively
smaller than the subject matter it got tangled up
with at the end.
I simply wanted to write a poem about the end
of that male fashion in cities at least where
men wore fedora hats everywhere, which
lasted up into about the 1960s.
And the poem is called, "The Death of the Hat."
"Once, every man wore a hat--
in the ashen newsreels, the avenues
of cities or broad rivers flowing with hats.
The ballparks swelled with thousands of straw hats, brims
and bands, rows of men smoking and cheering in shirtsleeves.
Hats were the law.
They went without saying.
You noticed a man in the crowd without a hand.
You bought them from Adams or Dobbs who branded your initials
in gold on the inside band.
Trolleys criss-crossed the city.
Steamships sailed in and out of the harbor.
Men with hats gathered on the docks.
There was a person to block your hat and a hat check girl
to mind them while you had a drink or ate a steak with peas
and a baked Potato in your office stood a hat rack.
The day war was declared, everyone in the street
was wearing a hat, and they were wearing hats
when a ship loaded with men and women sank into the icy sea.
My father wore one to work every day
and returned home carrying the evening paper, the winter chill
radiating from his overcoat.
But, today, we go bare-headed into the winter streets,
stand hatless on frozen platforms.
Today, the mailboxes on the roadside
and the spruce trees behind the house
wear cold white hats of snow.
Mice scurry from the stone walls at night in their thin fur hats
to eat the birdseed that has spilled.
And, now, my father, after a life of work,
wears a hat of Earth.
And on top of that, a lighter one of cloud and sky--
a hat of wind."