A trip to my Island post office is like a church bean supper. Without the church. Without the supper.
A trip to my Island post office
Is like a church bean supper
Without the church
Without the supper
But possibly with a can of beans
Shipped from the mainland
By a friend who spotted the gift
In Bea & Ed’s Down East Feast catalogue
And thought of me
Notification comes as a green card
Worn, wrinkled, handed down over time
And placed amid junk in your postal box
That’s too small to house your gift
Card in hand means you get in line
There’s always a line, no matter the hour
There’s always a line when short-sightedness
Has nowhere to go but to short-handedness
To maintain order, to avoid anarchy
The only way to follow procedure
Is first to proceed, then to follow
Or sometimes the other way around
Inching your way to hand in the card
To be rewarded, to be blessed to exit
With a tangible proof (YOUR NAME HERE)
Someone acknowledges your existence
Like a human clothesline, we dangle united
The art of waiting involves airing, flapping
Birds gathered on a wire, watching for an opening
Paratroopers taking their turn to jump to freedom
A chance to be at one with my community
An opportunity to be classless and equal
All good neighbors on the same mission
Sharing all sorts of chats and grumbles
A chance to experience some catching up
Time for the news
“How are you doing?”
“Is that a pleasantry or inquiry?”
Time for the weather
“My knee says it’s going to rain.”
“So did mine. Got a new one. Titanium.”
Time for sports
“They’re not together anymore. She’s back with the harbormaster.”
There’s a hint of existentialism in the air
“This line is awfully slow this morning.”
“That’s just compared to life outside.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Out of our hands, go with the flow.”
Without looking up from his newspaper
The gent in the Red Sox cap in front of me
Offers a jolt of wisdom
“To quote T. S. Eliot, ‘For us there is only the trying
—the rest is not our business.’”
15-minute parking
That’s what the sign says
In each slot in the post office lot
It’s also a sign that if God exists
He would wink at a mustache
Spray-painted on the Mona Lisa
The line creeps like a caterpillar
One postal clerk keeps disappearing
To take that green card on a treasure hunt
The other clerk is there for the anointing
Might as well comb through the catalogues
What seem to amount to a daily dozen
Trying to find something meaningful
Something provocative
Like determining the differences among
Artisanal, hand-crafted and home-spun
In Organic Or Else
With emphasis on local and lo-cal
Between Heaven and Health offers
Egg-scuse and side orders of Fakin’
For the kids,
There’s Madge & Harry’s Imaginaries
Or the Dog and Cat-alog
For the grown-ups,
There’s Fishing Well,
Or Flannel & Things
Most of my mail sadly consists
Of these shopping digests showing
Perfect people with the latest garb & gadgetry
They bear little resemblance to my reality
Or to any of us in my post office line
I’m betting none of them can quote T. S. Eliot
Comments
Enjoyable and fun reading,
Peter Pfluger Vineyard HavenEnjoyable and fun reading, thanks. It inspired me to suggest this solution:
In a post office in western Massachusetts (Dalton), you don't have to stand in line to get a parcel that is too big for your P.O. box. Instead of finding a green card in your P.O. box, you'll find a key with a number on it. The key will open one of the many large, numbered, different-sized wall boxes. Your key opens the same numbered wall box which contains your package. The key opens the box, but cannot be removed except by a postal worker, which he does when he is restocking the empty wall boxes. Restocking takes place at non-peak hours. If space can be made in a post office to install these wall boxes, it's a self-serve win win method. In Vineyard Haven installing a bank of wall boxes against the lower wall below the window where people stand in line for service might be a good spot.
While a great idea, the
David Nash EdgartownWhile a great idea, the Edgartown post office has had these boxes for years. We have received a key only once. What a waste of space and money.
At the Edgartown post office
Peter Pfluger Vineyard HavenAt the Edgartown post office the problem could be that the key system that was installed a long time ago was too small for modern day volume, and so it became pointless to utilize a system that would only service a very small percentage of the packages?
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