The Postman, a.k.a. "Poem to a distant correspondante"

I have paid my pence, all twenty-nine,
And slipping it into the box, lay holy claim to his time, 

 

The Postman, who shuffles doubt-filled to his duty,
To bring you my scribblings, scrawled 'midst musings on your beauty. 

 

In his unwilling complicity with this folly of mine,
He must be surely moved to think of Christmastime, 

 

His sacks filled top-full with arctic-bound notes,
Writ all by children, spurred by fantasy and hope. 

 

Does he keep their letters, that they might not the real truth know?
Or does he bear them northward, leave them to God, turn, and go? 

 

Or still yet, exasperated, say, choosing to play the cynic,
"Vain child, give up your dreams and see the world for what it is"? 

 

Or does he share my unrequited longing tender,
And so is loath to coldly stamp it, "Return to Sender"? 

 

-- May 18, 1991 copyright © 1991, 2005