Postal Blues

I went to the Post Box on the High Street, St Aubin. It has VR on it - Victoria Regina. A legacy from the age of Anthony Trollope, but in a strange place. Not at the bottom of the high street, but tucked away at the top, almost before any houses begin. It is a hefty climb, although it has good views. Who would have walked here in the past? Why was it placed here? No one would climb here now to post a letter, that's for certain.

The lives of those who lived and walked by, who posted letters, must have been very different from today's. But who would pass it now to post letters? Who would climb the high street when there is a post box down in St Aubin. The labourers who walked by are gone, and the post box is a last shadow of the past to remind us that they once came this way.

Postal Blues

Along the old post box, a snail crawls
Red metal covered with a coat of grime
The moss creeping over nearby walls
No one has been here for a long time

Once it was a busy path, workers walked
Down to the harbour; once a thriving port
Rich merchants haggled prices, talked
Privateers bargained hard at the Old Court

But that was years ago, now all remains
Is the view, right at the top of the hill
Gone are the walkers by, gone the trains
Victoria Regina say the letters still

It is sad when fragments of the past are left
Almost a time to mourn, to feel bereft