LETTERS

"Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Remember stationery? I particularly liked Crane’s. They produced some beautiful high-linen-content heavy notecards and stationery. I recently used the last notecard in my last box of Crane’s to write a “thank you” note to a friend. It got me to thinking about letter writing and how it seems on its way to becoming a lost art, if not already there. I think this is sad and a terrible loss, not only to us, but particularly future generations.

No one will find a bundle of ribbon-tied love letters in a trunk in the attic in the future. Instead, our generation’s descendants will find “cloud” accounts with cryptic emails devoid of breath and touch. That is assuming they can access those accounts at all or even care to do so.

There is something special about a handwritten letter. Knowing that the author chose the perfect stationery and their favorite pen to write something personal just to you gives it special value - makes it worth savoring and saving - maybe to reread later or to pass along to those who discover it after you are gone.

Today’s poem is a bit about that.

LETTERS

linen paper
and fountain pens ~
stationery without lines
a struggle to keep them straight
those scratchy letters pouring
forth from heart
and mind

letters
just letters
strung together
cursive art
creating a memorial
as simple and as complicated
as A, B, C
letters mixed and stirred
building words that
together can burst or break a heart

love letters, maybe
or
”Dear John” letters
I once wrote one of those
to a boy
wearing army drab
in a foreign land
it seems so mean
now
but then I was sixteen
and a letterman’s jacket
from a football jock
or a fraternity pin
embossed with Sigma Chi
meant more than waiting
waiting
for crumpled letters
smudged on par avion onionskin
to arrive
or not