Old Style Letters - (A poem in two parts).

                 1

It is like the old times.
I sit writing letters to you,
Pen on paper.
No hurried text messages in a private code.
Texts that can be wiped out in a moment,
Never to be stored in a perfumed bundle
Tied with a silk ribbon.

It is like the old times.
We are both avowedly old fashioned,
Preferring hard backs to videos,
Oil paints to photos;
Crops we have grown to packaged vegetables
Picked off a shelf in a supermarket.
We would live in a Vardo if we could do so,
But camping by the roadside is no longer viable.

It is like the old times.
I scrawl long letters to you
Believing you will keep them
Underneath your pillow.
(I keep yours in a jewellery box by the bedroom window).
We have found an integrity in outmoded ways,
A no nonsense strength that binds us together.

It is like the old times.
We have thrown away the new tat
And made the past our future;
We should learn at once the art of calligraphy
So that even our household notes are beautiful.

                 2.

There is a homeliness in simple things,
(My pinewood desk - the ticking clock -
The flow of ink on paper).
Such simple things are made to last,
To be of use - and not to fail.               

Yet we all must fail, retreat and fall,
That is the shadow on human nature;
But when our ashes are crushed and mixed,
Then scattered on the quiet water,
With luck these letters will remain
To tell our little story.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 24th. - 25th. - November 14th. - 22nd. - 23rd. - 25th. - 28th. 2019.
Note. It has been very difficult to find the structure of this poem, but now that I have split the poem into two parts it has gained a strength that it had previously lacked.