Vintage rubber stamps from flea markets and brocantes in Paris
For Poetry Thursday, a ten-minute poem inspired by handwritten letters that linger for decades:
In any language
script to be studied
letters formed
communication dear
Handwritten pages
in faded ink survive the years
stories and secrets intact
lost love letters
Stumbling across the words
in languages foreign
yet speaking to the heart
and foreshadowing history
Personal thoughts poured
from a pen on parchment
shared with a close friend
or perhaps an absent love
Longings expressed
regrets exposed
declarations of love
news from home
Initials in script
stamped on an envelope
sealed with a kiss
sent on a wing and a prayer
Tucked under a pillow
sighed over by candlelight
or slipped in a sleeve
dazzling words of promise
This poem reminds us that emails can't be clutched to the heart like a good old-fashioned handwritten missive. Great job!
Posted by: Dani | 31 December 2006 at 01:19
I have my husband's letters, all of them filled with love, tied up with an old ribbon, a precious reminder of who I am...
xoxo
Posted by: Colette | 29 December 2006 at 20:43
That was beautiful, Tara- and it so hits home for me. My mom is desperately looking for an old love letter writen by my dad to her- we can't seem to find it but I hope daddy whispers in her ear one night and tells her where it is.
"Declarations of love" indeed...
Posted by: Regina Clare Jane | 29 December 2006 at 17:06
wooops.......I totally fell for the vintage love stamps.......what lovely love letters I could create with them,lol.
Posted by: Britt-Arnhild | 29 December 2006 at 16:54
I've got a 'real' weakness for old love letters and millinary too! lovely poem Tara as always...Happy 2007 to you! xo
Posted by: berrie | 29 December 2006 at 16:48
These are awesome and the poetry is definitely worth appreciating, Happy New Year Miss Parfait
Posted by: cathy | 29 December 2006 at 16:26
Old letters....the sacred in the ordinary
Posted by: Gemma | 29 December 2006 at 15:57
A beautiful poem of love and the love of letter writing, of setting thoughts to paper ... beautiful. JP
Posted by: JanePoe (aka Deborah) | 29 December 2006 at 08:04
Not too bad for a ten minute poem. I too like the old letters. When I get them scanned and cropped, I have a few vintage postcards I want to post. They'll probably be up in January.
Happy New Year.
Posted by: sarala | 29 December 2006 at 07:45
Hi Tara! I love this poem - there's just something so magical and sweet about hand written letters. So sad that it's a dying artform. Email is wonderful and convenient but just not the same. The stamps are so pretty - I just think about how they would make such lovely greeting cards.
Hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas! Happy New Year! (Will you be wearing your champagne-colored party shoes? I think I remember those from a post way back!)
Posted by: Kim G. | 29 December 2006 at 06:13
I love old letters, espeically old love letters. I have two boxes of letters in my basement that my husband and I wrote to each other when we were teenagers in college, separated by all of 35 miles! We wrote volumes every day (no email or cell phones in 1974!) I'm saving them for my grandchildren to laught about.
Just recently I found a box of letters my husbands parents had written to each other in the summer of 1934. Those were quite interesting!
Your poem captures all the magic of letters, and they way they last through the ages.
Posted by: Becca | 29 December 2006 at 03:15
Oh MY!! As an artist and lover of all things French, I a m JONESING for those stamps! ha! Oh AND the vintage flowers and grapes!!!!!
Posted by: Pam Aries | 29 December 2006 at 01:42
Vintage stamps - how lovely. And a wonderful poem to go with the image.
Posted by: holli | 29 December 2006 at 01:25
Now is this poem about love letters or poems? I think both do the same or sometimes are one in the same...like this poem.
Posted by: Novel Nymph | 28 December 2006 at 22:09
There is a kind of beauty and permanence to a hand-written letter; a bit of the person who wrote it in preserved in the script. It's sad that we seem to be losing that. I used to write letters by hand all the time, and I mostly stopped doing that once I started using e-mail, with the exception of Christmas and Birthday cards. Shame, really.
Posted by: desert rat | 28 December 2006 at 21:11
I especially like "languages foreign
yet speaking to the heart"
Posted by: my backyard | 28 December 2006 at 20:42
Hi,
My first time here. My wife uses rubber stamps to make greeting cards and I love the photo.
Myself, the poem is beautiful and connects the objects to past words. I have always wondered what happens to old letters, now I know. Thank you.
Posted by: Brian | 28 December 2006 at 20:23