Posting

I’m impatient while waiting

for letters to arrive from strangers

Didn’t I take part in the letter writing month

I wrote to twelve people I never met

Selecting each one— geography,

hobbies, outrageous ideas—

I never traveled to South Dakota,

only put two feet in Montana,

thought that Western Australia sounded

remote, thought that a woman who

chose seventy new things to do 

to celebrate her 70th year 

was close to my inner self, although

my selections would be tamer

I travel down the Amazon on an adventure 

bound in a book, or run a marathon

in relentless heat while wearing sneakers

and drinking a banana - strawberry smoothie

I wait to hear from the woman who

puts up jam and I never grew a grape

but I can tell her how I walk past a sign

telling of the first planting of Concord Grapes

And to the woman who leads a Bible study

I will tell her about Bible journaling

and the study I’m taking and how

the leader parses words bleaching meaning

And to the woman who takes photographs 

of the canyons in the Southwest I will tell her

how when I hiked that orange and red landscape

I swallowed the colors and carry them within

Each day I open the mailbox and hope that

someone sent a return letter