I was once having trouble writing poems.
This happens more frequently than I would like to admit.
I couldn't get anything going was the problem.
And what I got going I didn't like, because I
didn't want it to be going.
It wasn't that it was scary.
That would have been fine.
It was that it was dull.
And there's no sin worse than that.
So I asked friends for help.
What else can you do?
My friends always give me help.
They're marvelous.
It's sometimes horrible ideas.
But at least it's something.
And the idea this time was think of someone
and address the poem to that person.
Because I was getting done because I was getting distant.
So if I really spoke to a particular person,
how to do it?
I tried.
I really worked hard at it.
But I couldn't get anyone.
That I could think of that I wanted to write a poem to.
There were people I wanted to write letters to.
But nothing really that I wanted to write a poem to.
Then they drift off.
So I decided that I had to settle for second best.
I had a hat.
I decided to address the poem to the hat.
You make two.
It was a Mexican hat with a fairly narrow brim,
flat top, white.
And it sat there and it didn't move away.
And I looked at it.
It was there.
I'm going to make this the last one.
It's called On Buying A Hat.
I bought a straw hat convinced I wanted it.
I bought a small hat to make it like me.
How wide the world is riding there on top?
How little like me remind me little hat?
Thank you.