Yelling at Traffic

I was driving home from church last weekend, my Bigfoot husband squeezed into the passenger seat, the kids strapped into the back, when someone cut in front of me.

“Watch out! Geez! Lucky for you, I was about to switch lanes! But you didn’t know that. You would’ve just ran right into me! You got right where I was; you almost hit me! Look where you’re going!”

Had the kids not been in the back, my language might have been more colorful. As it was, it was…it was….

Poetic.

Did you know it’s National Poetry Month?

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to join Malaika King Albrecht for a workshop on epistolary poetry at the Carteret Writers conference. The whole conference was phenomenal, but you can’t beat poems in a garden with Malaika.

Epistolary poems are in the form of a letter – written to family, loved ones, people you could never speak to in person, yourself, inanimate objects, parts of your body, etc. There was laughter; there were tears. There was me, taking it too far.

Malaika shared poems to get us going, and I especially enjoyed Kai Coggin’s letter to the flappy bat wings under her arms. Clearly, those bat wings are never going to write back. But what would they say if they could?

It got me thinking about other letters never meant to be answered – like diaries. I have a friend who journals every day, letters to her future self, a meticulous practice spanning decades. It’s probably a good idea, but the thought of all that material on my to-read shelf is overwhelming.

And letters to Santa. Maybe you get some gifts, and that’s your answer, but he never writes back.

Which is why, when my seven-year-old said he wanted a letter from Santa for Christmas next year, I didn’t know what to say. The whole Santa thing confuses the tinsel out of me anyways; it’s too complicated.

His hopes were high because the Wild Kratts brothers, Chris and Martin, replied with a signed postcard when my boys sent them fan-mail. They idolize the Kratt Brothers; they want to be the Kratt brothers. And if the Kratt Brothers can do it, surely Santa can.

“But how would you know it’s really from Santa?” I asked. I was imaging how I’d fake this convincingly, if this will be the candy-cane-swirled straw that breaks the back of Ol’ Saint Nick.

“Well, only Santa could send a letter from Santa.”

Thank goodness. I can fake that.

Now back to the road rage rants.

They’re just like epistolary poems, only never written down. It’s slam poetry, delivered to the steering wheel microphone. It’s a letter to the other driver – never sent, never answered.

And then there’s prayer, our letters to God. Most of the ones I’ve sent have been answered, and the rest will be, in the next stanza.