The River Keeps Our Names

To you, sitting by the river,

Welcome to the Storm Post Office. This letter takes the form of an independent cultural print: a desaturated blue cotton envelope with a flowing narrow serif headline; creamy modernist cut-paper buildings set out in rhythm, with fern engravings between them; a hand-painted terracotta line, a layered strip of translucent jade paper, and a tiny river-map stamp. It is November 1990 in São Paulo, and the houses along the river are lit.

A Portuguese poet, far from the land he loved, looked at the water and began like this: "By the rivers that run through Babylon I found myself, and there, seated, I wept for the memory of Zion and for all I had lived in her." — Luís de Camões, Rimas (1595)

A river cannot remember everything for us, but it remembers the names that passed. You were here, and you wrote; the river keeps that much. Think of someone and write us a letter with their name on it.

By the water,

Storm Post Office

November 1990 · São Paulo

P.S. The river on the map stamp is unnamed. It is left for you to fill in your own.