Letters

I am the poet,
and I speak of letters-
those letters that I have known
personally,
both as sender and as receiver
the letters postmarked:
"Federal Penitentiary for Women" Alderson,
West Virginia.
And I speak of those letters too,
that have passed the hands of
my father and uncle,
decades ago across the Atlantic,
both the victims of politics-
prisoners of communism.
But that was during the 1950's in Hungary-
a country that I have only visited 
during less turbulent times
and so, I know of those letters
only secondhand
through the stories of my family
thus, I can only imagine.
And yet I speak of those letters too,
that I,myself have held
in these hands-
the letters sent to me
by my father some thirty years
after his experience.
The letters written in his neat,
block-letter script
and the ones from my mother-
in her unruly scrawl
the letters that comforted me when
I was behind The Walls.
And I speak of letters, 
the ones from the present,
kept in order
inside my desk drawer
alongside my poems.
The letters from my husband's friend
- only seventeen
and in the County Jail
awaiting trial-
to be held in two weeks
(and yet three eyewitnesses proclaim
his innocence).
I speak of letters
these, that I know of-
the specific.
But I speak universally also,
I speak of the letters
written to other loved ones
and to all unfortunates
forced apart
seperated by the often insurmountable-
and the cruelty of circumstances-
those with which I can empathize
because of my own history.
These are not the letters essential
to poets and authors;
the fabric with which they weave
the tapestry of their craft.
Not the letters that are the blood
of human language.
I speak of letters,
not the common
stating the obvious,
"I hope everything is fine".
telling, "So and so did such and such".
and, "This is what is happening".
I speak of the letters that resurrect
faith, often lost or nonexistant
in war or captivity.
Letters that travel to foreign fronts-
dismal prisons,
letters waited on as is the second coming
of Christ, among the pious.
How many soldiers have died
with a perfumed letter tucked in their
pockets?
Fragrance and handwriting long since faded
worn with the pillage of time
and weather,
paper once fresh and crisp
detiorating
from frequent handling,
letters fingered like the beads
of a rosary.
And how many prisoners cherish
these very letters?
Each memorized
like the words of a prayer.
Letters their only bond
to distant memories-
home and family
these pieces of paper
the sole contact
with normality.
I speak of letters
carefully folded
enclosed in envelopes
adorned
by some jailhouse artist
his intricate sketches
a longing for those thing missed-
birds and flowers,
lovers embracing.
And I speak of letters,
on paper olive drab
stuffed in haste
inside an envelope stained
with mud,
bearing the soil of the battlefield.
The letters of war,
any war-
whether Europe's
during the lives of my parents
and grandparents
or ones more recent.
And what of the women
who wait?
Old mothers, like my own
and sweethearts, wives
how they must worry
yet cling to their dreams
the same dreams clung to by myself,
my father, uncle and how many others?
The dreams of PEACE and FREEDOM.