Today NaPoWriMo,s challenge is a metonymy prompt: “write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.”

The Poem-a-Day prompt is to write a nature poem.

Today’s Janus word for the A to Z Challenge is screen which can mean to conceal with or as if with a screen; or “to display prominently” as in screening a film.

A Feather in His Cap

There was a time
not so long ago
when a man would not leave home
without his hat

the rounded dome
with a short curved brim
made famous by a tramp
of a comedian on the silver screen

but is that a bird feather
in the band of that bowler
tucked with pride, showing
off kills or vanity?

as he fashions that fedora
that flash of color never seen
in black and white on the small
screen while detecting

but that ptarmigan
is thrilling as
he tips his trilby
and has her all aflutter

the ostrich dances
as he bows low
and swirls his cap
with foppish aplomb

as history and etiquette
melt away or we forget
caught up in the
spectacle of millinery