In the good and bad

old days, people wrote letters
with pens (latterly sometimes ball-points)
(or, in my case, with typewriters)
on paper – some times several sheets
of paper, which they folded, and placed
in envelopes on which they had written
or had typed an address.

A stamp was put on it, and it was posted.
The addressee, on receiving it, would know
where it was posted, and, almost always,
where it was written, because people wrote
the place (if it was different from their home-address)
and date at the beginning of the letter,
or, sometimes, at the end. 

The sender usually knew where the letter
would arrive, and could easily imagine it
(however inaccurately).

The problem I have with 'personal' e-mails,
as with cell-phones, is that the transit is obscure.
Communications are sent from and
received in unimaginable places –

and we have become
crypto-entities in cyberspaces.