In the mailbox, under its film of sticky
green and yellow pollen, a letter arrives
bearing a postmark: Stettener Str. 7,
Oberstotzingen, Germany. It is a letter
that has found its way after almost decades
of silence and not-knowing, from the Buddha’s
former student 30 years ago— Here is the card
with the same angled handwriting she remembers
from exams he wrote on Kafka and Kant, Chekov,
Rilke; and here is a photo of him now, surgeon,
married, four kids. What joy to hear from you,
he writes— How I have thought of who I am and what
I try to be, of where I am at home; and how that’s made
of friends and colleagues, acquaintances, relations
—circles from which I draw my hope and strength.
And yes, the Buddha agrees: more’s the wonder
one can go years without knowing what has happened
to someone, then close the gap. Once she knew him
as a young man: adrift in a country not his own,
learning a tongue made of sounds he did not fully grasp.
One moment ago there was only a suitcase of years
filled with change after change. Now, there is
a return address, a phone number; stories
of lives lived with and among others.
Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of What is Left of Wings, I Ask (2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Prize, selected by Natasha Trethewey); Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She is a member of the core faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University which she directed from 2009-2015. In 2018, she was the inaugural Glasgow Distinguished Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family, knits, hand-binds books, and listens to tango music.