This poem was placed anonymously into the Poetry Tree mailbox on Thursday. Titled 'Life's Pathways,' it begins, 'Sometimes twisted/and overgrown/Present obstacles/we can never predict.' (Daily Record/Sunday News - Bill Landauer)
York, PA - He was hurting badly enough to write it down.
"I want to get her out of my mind," the man wrote in sharp letters. "I freed myself 3 days ago but broke in again today -- What did she have to say?
"My life is about to change," he continued. "Drastically."
Yvette Hardy, art therapist at the Lehman Center, found the letter Friday, folded inside the mailbox at the Poetry Tree. It covers four numbered pages.
The poem is the most personal writing that's been left in the mailbox behind the Lehman Center's offices on West Market Street, Hardy said.
The Lehman Center added its Poetry Tree -- a weeping cherry tree and the box -- in September. Passersby are invited to write poems and leave them. They're also allowed to take a poem left by someone else.
"It's to create a communication between people who may not otherwise interact," Hardy said. "It's supposed to be a place of calm or beauty."
The idea came when Lehman Center staffers visited James Madison University's Edith J. Carrier Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in August. They found a basket attached to a weeping willow. Visitors were invited to sit and reflect at the tree, pen a poem, leave it and take another.
Lehman added its tree with the help of Union Evangelical Lutheran Church. A few yellowing pine trees were dying on the square of grass between the buildings.
The church removed the pines. Lehman Center sent out fliers to the neighborhood about what the poetry tree would be.
On Sept. 25, neighborhood volunteers helped plant the sapling, which was donated by a church member. Hardy and Angela Linebaugh, also an art therapist and director of clinical services at the Lehman Center, painted the mailbox. The painting features people of all ages in repose around a tree, which lifts into a dark blue sky. As the tree rises, its branches turn into butterflies.
On the box's front, it says "Give a poem. Take a poem."
They've received about 20 so far. Church employees check the box about once a day. Lehman Center staffers look about once a week.
One person left a drawing of a "silly face," Hardy said. It was the only prank.
"People have been very respectful."
Some poems are signed. Many are anonymous. Subjects run the gamut, Hardy said.
"Many people just write about the space. They write about the tree," she said.
The church is compiling a book with the poems. Church employees remove the writings long enough to scan them, then return them to the box, said the Rev. Judy McKee, pastor.
Other local businesses and community members are interested in setting up poetry trees, she said.
"It's about making a neighborhood a better place," said center director Martha Martin.
In addition to its beautifying effects to unused green spaces, the give-and-take of the poetry-tree concept can be therapeutic, Hardy said.
"Taking the time/to share your story/helps you and/helps others see/that we are not alone/in the joys and suffering/of this world," one poem reads.
Where is it?
The Poetry Tree plot lies behind the Lehman Center at 400 W. Market St. The mailbox faces Penn Street and lies between the Lehman Center and the church.
The Lehman Center
The Lehman Center is one of three centers of the Children's Aid Society, an agency that promotes rescuing neglected, dependent and orphaned children.
The center provides emergency respite care in a 24-hour crisis-care nursery for infants through 6-year-olds.
It also offers art and play therapy, family advocate services and family support groups.
Learn more at www.cassd.org.
Want to help?
Union Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Lehman Center, both on West Market Street in York, are hoping to add a bench to the space they're using for the poetry tree. To help, call the church at 843-7897.
DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS -- BILL LANDAUERYvette Hardy of the Lehman Center in York checks the mailbox Friday at the Poetry Tree. Since the mailbox was put up in November, about 20 poems have been placed into it.
DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS -- BILL LANDAUER
This poem was placed anonymously into the Poetry Tree mailbox on Thursday. Titled 'Life's Pathways,' it begins, 'Sometimes twisted/and overgrown/Present obstacles/we can never predict.'
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