Past the Age of Sending Letters

It was so much waiting, it forced you into unhurriedness
Your body might arch against it, straining to will the wait away, but the day stood unblinking, uncaring, and so you were patient
There was no other way

I was born just soon enough to be graced with the frustrations of that age—the Age of Letters,
Before we all ushered her, with relief, out the back door, feeling ourselves triumphant:
Goodbye and no more you—You age of rain-or-sun-stained stamps and postcards

I remember sending one missive and stamping my feet two full weeks, then three, then more;
It was soul crushing, a trial for the self, a tribulation which angels looked down on, wagging celestial heads

My hands shook as they reached through the creaking chords of the mailbox,
To be dejected, rejected
But it made you take the pace of things as you sighed, looking to the leaves, unperturbed as they blinked against the sky 

Despite no relief and lips cracking even before the long walk back up the sunbaked driveway, the heartless clouds still crawled by,
And all sightless things seemed suddenly to have endless eyes, with none deigning to drop down one sympathetic glance

So you bucked up
You ruminated and let the grief of aliveness course through you, and you threw rocks at the neighbor's fence

When you were old enough, you learned to cuss, which helped a bit, and you might practice shooting birds at the absent mailman, ten minutes late, for some soul to blame (which makes a loss less painful)

You'd brave the driveway even through the rain, for that one drop of wetness that would soothe a soul
"I'm thinking of you," the note might say
"Camp is good, but I can't wait to see a movie with you when I get back. I can't wait."

But she could wait, actually, because we all did, walking and never running through the long gauntlet of desire at the heart of addled humanity

Now
In this age well past letters, the soul must be shaped in different ways, as we all look into our palms with crystal balls connected to any and every answer
We need not send any letter or brave the shaking hands of a phone call
We can hide behind quick texts, abbreviated so as to give nothing at all away
And look up, worshipping the satellites which seem to save us

Still, I wonder—
What happens in an age when no one has to wait?
How will new souls take shape
In this brave and frightful age?