This poem was inspired by a dear friend. I can’t even describe how
much I love him. But it’s also intended to be a big tip of the hat to all the
good folks who still value the beauty of “slow” human communication via
letters and e-mail. It is an art form, and you do it so well.
.
Even the small amount of time I spend on the internet sometimes gets to
me. But you are real. You are beautiful. I print out your e-mails, and I find
your envelopes in my mailbox. I take your words into the woods with me
and read them away from the mind numbing hum of the computer. Thank
you for taking the time to send your soul. You keep me sane.
.
The man with the mandolin in this poem is real, but I don’t know who he is.
I just thought it was perfect that I heard his singing on the day my friend’s
letter came. His words are music.
.
A Friend Sends Me Letters
.
Julie Buffaloe-Yoder
.
I walk barefoot
to the mailbox
at the end of
my dirt road.
.
Two hills away,
a man sings and
a mandolin plays.
.
Last night’s rain
has melted into sun.
.
A wild turkey clucks
through muddy reeds;
mist rises by the pond.
.
The mailbox shines silver,
creaks open, and there’s
a letter my friend sends
.
covered in stamps
and a picture I love
of a stick man
he always draws
on the envelope.
.
He writes letters
to me
with two fingers
.
on a manual typewriter
under noon day shade
of a black locust tree,
.
leaves little bits of himself
on the paper–his words
.
smell like a garden
churned butter,
a rumble of thunder.
Warm beer spilled
on a barroom floor.
.
He tells me stories
about red chickens,
the wind and the rain.
Guitars, lovers, poetry.
Those hard old days.
.
It’s not an electronic card
sent to fifty others
with a push of a button.
.
Not a Facebook message.
Not a snippet on Twitter.
.
It’s an experience
inside a sunny box
on a wet wooden pole.
.
It’s a slow cup of
black coffee,
a piping hot
slice of sanity,
.
a soft waltz
in the country.
.
An unfolding
of a soul.
.
It’s how words
on the page
should sing.
.
.
