The Farmhouse Still Shines

To every house with a lit window,

Welcome to the Storm Post Office. This letter comes from a country farm at the edge of the Western Front, autumn 1920. The envelope is muted sage linen, lettered like a hand-painted sign above a farm gate, and a narrow engraved vignette shows a farmhouse and bare trees. Patchwork cream stamps, a rust-red field-note label, a small drawing of a pressed flower, and, blind-embossed into the paper, a few footpaths no ink has crossed.

A poem from the war years leaves out the battlefield and shows a man harrowing a field at a slow walk and a pair of sweethearts whispering by. It ends: “War’s annals will cloud into night / Ere their story die.” — Thomas Hardy, In Time of “The Breaking of Nations” (1916)

That is what a lit window means. If you are tired, set your pack down by the door, take something hot, and write to someone, slowly.

Warm light to you

Storm Post Office

Autumn 1920 · Western Front