To keep old letters,
or to throw them away?--much more difficult
than Hamlet's question.
Letters from my mother
in her neat handwriting--
to me when I taught
in Germany. Letters
from former girlfriends--
& "girlfriend" now seems
as antique as ink missives
crawling along mail routes.
I hate to destroy someone's
writing. I see the people
sitting at a desk or a table,
taking time to shape sentences,
to somehow slip news
and feeling into scrawl....
sealing the envelope....
attaching stamps....
Words, preserved--
a pickling of thought.
Eventually we all have to
wreck evidence of our lives:
To have been, or not to have been.
hans ostrom 2023
