Dawn in the East End

To our earliest-rising neighbor,

Day has only just broken, and the brick houses of London's East End still hold the cool of the night. This letter comes from 1935–36, in an envelope of cheap cream paper. A sturdy woodtype headline, in the manner of a British sports poster, sits over dark green engravings of brick streets that end in a running track, and only the torch is touched with a restrained orange-red. A pasted community notice runs along one corner, its edge perforated like a ticket stub.

The coal smoke has not cleared, but morning light already lies on the roofs. A poet wrote of London at dawn: "This City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the morning." — William Wordsworth, "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" (1807)

His air was smokeless; ours is not. But we have early runners, shops lifting their shutters, and neighbors calling to one another across the street. Welcome. Start out with us from here: the letter may be written slowly, and the road run slowly, too.

Good morning, neighbor

Storm Post Office

1935–36 · East End, London