Lost hat
by rebecca ~ January 19th, 2005. Filed under: Poems & art.
LOST HAT
I dreamt about that hat again
although it�s been gone
for two months now, slipped
from my hood into the deep
unplowed snow of the faculty lot.
When I retraced my path, it had
already vanished into the hands
of a student or a professor
who must daily marvel at the most
curious and warmest hat on earth.
My husband suggested that maybe
it wasn�t stolen, that maybe
it had burrowed into the snow
like its cousin, the squirrel,
and in spring it will reappear.
With watery eyes, it will leap
to my head and set its sodden paws
upon my chest and purr. Or a crowd
will gather around to whisper as
I fling myself onto its furry corpse.
As a child I had heard of a faraway land
where forgotten things live.
Millions of solitary socks, gloves and
mittens, umbrellas, unfinished books,
stray dogs and cats, and helium balloons
frolic in a mountainous land with
the children and the elderly
we discard or misplace.
In the dream my hat was there, large
enough to engulf the heads of the eight
most powerful world leaders, strong
enough to eradicate the coldest,
most ruthless minds, bold enough
to shout the truth of the oppressed,
a triumphant, headless King of the Hill.