The Crossing Arts Alliance presented a “Poetry on the Wall” exhibit in the Q Gallery with a Reading and Reception on January 26 featuring local poets reading their selected work.  A People’s Choice Award was presented to Laura Hansen of Little Falls Minnesota for her Poem, “Dear Postmaster”. 

Dear Postmaster,

I am wondering how to wrap up a package. The contents are fragile, but will not break. They may ignite but are not flammable. I need to know the regulations for wrapping up sunshine and sending it cross country. I need to know the postal rate for water that flows by on a November morning fraught with chattering leaves on their last journey. I plan to send my cousin the first snowfall, my brother the squeak of the swing’s rope in the tree. To my nephew I’ll be sending a memory of my uncle in his home-made leather sandals talking to birds.

I’ve got brown wrapping paper and string but I’m told that is the old way of wrapping. Can these things I send be put in a standard rate box? How heavy will the loss of my father be? How many words make up a pound? I am sending along the dream I had this morning; it was brief but it fills my mind with the weight of my father’s hazel eyes watching. His essence – a mischievous grin, an upended sailboat, a tumbler of Chivas Regal on the rocks, a shot of penicillin in the arm, a long held tear – is needed by a family friend in California. What is the quickest way to get it there?

I am entrusting you to handle these things with care. Does that require a special label?  I hope you don’t mind me being such a bother, but my Mother always told me if you don’t know then you need to ask. She asked a lot of questions. I don’t know if she always got the answers she wanted. I’m more likely to try to figure things out for myself. But then there is this problem of not knowing how to post the feel of the dog’s cold wet nose on my arm in the morning or how the siren sounded just before the hail started to clatter on the metal awnings, the counterpoint of wail and rap, of howl and pound that filled the evening hours last weekend. Does that go into a letter or parcel is what I ask?

I look forward to your reply.

With Kindest Regards,The Lady with the Pink Mailbox

By Laura L. Hansen