Stamps of the World

(Grandpa's Legacy)

Why does Portugal love Snoopy? And why

do so many countries around the world 

(Denmark, Cuba, Paraguay…) love cats?

Perhaps that’s a silly question. After all,

I love Snoopy and I love cats. Why

would anyone not? Still – on stamps?

Beautiful Mt Fuji seems to make more sense.

and perhaps some flowers are national,

or birds, or even fungi. (But lobsters? Bats?)

I’m more used to profiles of monarchs

(British) or notables from history (Australian)

or images of expensive public events.

In the middle of my childhood,

when I started to be serious, but before

I became teenaged and frivolous again, 

Grandpa decided I’d collect stamps, like him.

He thought I’d enjoy it; spent hours teaching me 

about the rare, the peculiar, the detailed stories

of particular specimens, their varied geography.

I didn’t want facts about little squares of paper –

though I loved it when he taught me about trees 

and birds and rocks, and far-flung family members.

He also gave me books, every Christmas and birthday. 

It was they, not the stamps, which brought me messages, 

took me to different places, taught me the storied world. 

These days, who uses stamps? We write emails.

But books continue to enthral, showing me

flowers, animals, cartoon characters, mountains …

The prompt from NaPoWriMo was to be inspired by stamps, with links to some collections of pictures. I looked at this lot in particular.  I starte d writing the poem before getting the PAD prompt, which was to write a middle poem, so I've given only a passing nod to that, which I placed in the middle of my poem.

[Revised version]