With a quill in hand,

I could tell thee how much they are loved,

and it would be believed, it would be honoured

for the feather would catch the late April

sunshine struggling through

the grime ridden window and would pause

your concerns for the day;

the ink staining the desk would congeal

and hard work would be seen to have been employed

in the making of verbal declarations of love

to your fair and beautiful eyes.

 

With a typewriter, an old fashioned

set of clunky keys resounding

in the dead of night, the moveable

type that I am

matches the Sholes and Gidden

as a thing of beauty in itself

and I swoon at the sound

as you will soon collapse I hope

into my arms as a gesture of adoration

is passed via the Querty origins

and the ping of a small bell denotes seconds out.

 

By hurried pencil, I at least can draw

a picture on the side, a flower

by any other name can still look

like a hippo in my clumsy fingers

and claw like, tongue out,

concentrate hard to make it look,

fairly alright and soon to fade to dust

handwriting, withered by age

but romanced with time

and with possibility of erased heart

damning the lines forever.

 

Untouched virgin

paper I salute you,

clean and bright, you stand upon the precipice

of immortality

in someone’s faint rememberance,

their summoning up of courage

and skittish giggles as they declare their love,

is only ever lost when the backspace

key of modern times is employed;

a letter to not send, a note to never

whisper in the dark.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016