Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

Hair

and he becomes the remembrance and moves nimbly in the dark from rock to rock. Hair Did you know that hair isflyingaround in the universe? Hair trimmed from beards in barbershops, from mustaches at the mirror, from underarms, from crotches, legs and chests—human hair. It all gets dumped into a fill-in space and then the wind getsat it and sailsitback into the cities and towns and villages, right through your open windows during summer and even during winter down your chimney. Hair, brown, black, red, white, grey and yellow.They get all mixed up and you find them on your pullover sweater and wonder who did you come up against with yellow hair which you happen to like and you dream of its actually having happened that you were in touch with a person with yellow hair. That's not the whole of it. Think of walking through the street on a windy day or even on a calm, balmy day.The hair is floating all around you and you are walking through perhaps an invisible or fine mist of cut hairs. Black, brown, red that you would not have cared to touch in a million years because you associate them with certain kinds of faces and behavior but there are the hairs of these people touching and clinging to you, as iftrying to tell you that hair is everywhere and everybody has it and that it's hopeless to try to pick black or brown or red off your sleeves but not yellow hair. It would be an act of insanity. Youneed to pick them all off or none and let yourself be covered by them all, like a new kind of fur coat or perhaps a new hairy skin to protect you from the weather. Hairof all colors. What a pretty sight that would make, wouldn't it, and you would have a coat of many colors, and I bet you would be proud of it, especially if you saw everyone else wearing a coat of many colors. How about that? Because people cut their hair and let it fly out over the world where it lands on everyone and everyone is sharing in the coat of many colors. 709 ...