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ANDREW TAYLORHatsHumanity is a hat-wearingmammalYounger though and hatlessI'd face summer with the clear eyeand empty head of a youth who thoughtcancer was something that blossomed onlyin hospitals, and a kiss from the fierytongue of the sun would guaranteeheroic bronze.Now that my frecklesfetching perhaps once, have melted overface, neck, shoulders and the better partof my vulnerable skin, I find the travelling shadeof a hat more becoming - becoming in factan oasis in blistering streets and coolerthan the red-faced outsider with hairbleached by the beach whose burning solespadded through my hot adolescent sandy dreams.If I were bald, I might have learned more adeptlythat a portable roof in rough weather'sa wise precaution, and not a ritual exercisefor hands at windy corners nor exaltedbare-faced sexism. But being well thatchedmy pate overlooked my naked dependenciesgranting the sun full licence to invokeits privater, clandestine treachery.High time then, at last, to adoptthat garment of prudence and praisethat once crowned an empire, and lift my hatto our ancestors' subtler, shadier ways.WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 27