Snail Mail

This poem was inspired by a hand-written note I received yesterday from my Aunt Ardith in Kansas. Thanks for practicing the lost art of handwriting.  You have beautiful penmanship.   It meant alot to  me.

Lost Art

Nothing is much better,

Than receiving a hand-written letter,

A personal note written just for you,

There used to be many, now they are few,

An email is nice; a text is fine,

But “snail mail” as it’s called, is a favorite of mine,

Not junk mail, advertisements or bills, you understand,

But a thoughtful, well-scripted line or two, written by hand,

My Mamaw Langston always took it quite hard,

If  no hand-written note was included in a greeting card,

She would say: “I got a card today, but without a scratch in it”,

Which to her meant the sender really didn’t mean it,

To her, it was important to add a personal touch,

To the store-bought verse, or was that asking too much?

Beautifully-formed cursive handwriting is such a lost art,

Once you learn it, it’s easy, you know it by heart,

But nowadays they don’t teach it in grammar school,

They teach students to only print the alphabet, as a rule,

They certainly teach the keyboard; I’m sure it’s required,

But you get my message: “handwriting” is desired,

There are five parts to a friendly letter, it’s true:

The heading, greeting, body, closing and signature too,

Beginning with the date at the top, spelled out fully,

The month, the day and year- you should read it clearly,

Then start with “dear”, a polite salutation,

Then the body of the letter with a sweet placation,

So next is “sincerely” or “yours truly”, when you finish your thought,

Followed, of course, by your name, which you were taught,

Next time you send someone a greeting card,

Add a personal line or two, as a kind regard

 Tammy Harvey 

  written:  September 2, 2017