Many years ago I received a notecard from a friend with the question “How do you send a whisper on paper?” written on the front cover.  I have lived with this question for a long time…Here is one answer in the form of a poem about a Trumpet Vine growing around our old mailbox. We planted our new mailbox next to the original clipping.

Whisper

My living, breathing mailbox

started as a plant clipping that my father gave me.

Re-rooted, it grew into something more:

More bush than box

More vine than trumpet

More green than orange

More leaf than flower

More home than away

More trellis than post

More overgrown than pruned

Taking hold in new locations,

Neither here nor there.

Less address more envelope

Less envelop more postage

Door opens, arm goes in.

Sometimes the mailtruck passes by our house,

the driver not seeing a mailbox.

Other times, a backward glance, a double-take,

A pause.

A hand unlocks a secret garden or the door at the

back of a wardrobe.

A hand places gifts in the knothole of a tree,

like those passed from Boo Radley to Scout and Jem,

surprise treasures left for us to retrieve.

We watch hummingbirds hover over newfound blooms.

We delight in this box like no other we have seen.

In our driveway, we pause & see it on our way to

Wherever it is that we are going next.

Pulling into our driveway, the leaves brush the side of our car:

Sending a whisper on paper.