The Gentleman Who Wrote To Me

The unpleasant looking postman

Used to bring me letters

From a friendly elderly gentleman

Far, far away.

He used to cycle across the street

His big bag clung close

A keeper of many secrets

Who delivered them from door to door.

He was too tall, too lean

With a face rough and shabby

Hands which were never clean

From the dust of the roads.

Now, my dear gentleman

I knew he was pleasant and neat

A punctual person too

He wrote me a letter each week.

I used to see the postman each day

During his early rounds

But never once I saw, I would say

The man near our postbox.

He would slip by like a shadow

Or perhaps, like the wind, blow

Back in those days

He kept his profile low.

Then, a sudden forenoon\

He rapped at our doorstep

Had come a few hours too soon

To give my old friend's letter.

From then on, the unpleasant postman

Hand delivered my letters

I think the old gentleman was ageing

For his handwriting faltered.

We continued writing to each other

Two writers separated by land

I wrote my wish to see that grandfather

Who lived in a distant town.

So, one day, I packed up

Went to see him

But when I pounded the door

I was told

"That house has been empty for two months

The old gentleman is gone."