Without Hats

January 4, 2009

Life is a quest for the perfect hat.
The rest is just distraction –
the necessary evils of sustaining life
until we find it.

It was easier 60 years ago,
when everyone wore hats
all the time.
A walking smorgasbord of lids
from which one could sample,
taste a little of this tweed cap,
admire that felt fedora,
wrinkle one’s nose at that
feather-bedecked monstrosity.

Nowadays, however, there’s a famine,
with the fast-food John Deere cap
predominating, and the delicacy
of a tam o’shanter so rare
as to be drooled at from across
a restaurant, nose pressed to glass.

Gone are the days when a bowler
or a top hat
adorned every pate,
and gentlemen lifted their hat
to a passing lady.

Perhaps our lost gentility
is nothing more than
having forgotten our hats.