field post · two pages · most of it removed
no. 06 · ls-coll.
the rest was taken by the censor. names, places, the route, the weather, the men he was with, what they were doing, what they would do tomorrow — all of it removed in neat black bars and one small jagged hole. what remains is a single sentence about a cherry tree.
he died six months after writing it, in a country whose name he had been forbidden to mention. the cherry tree was not in that country. it was in the garden of the house he had left, the house he was writing toward, the house she kept after, alone, for forty-one years.
what is lost: the rest of the letter. what is also lost: the letters he might have written if he had been allowed to write more than this. what is found, of him, is one tree, in spring, seen once over a shoulder.
field-note — the cherry tree at that address was cut down in 1971. she did not know. she had moved by then to a flat with no garden, where she kept the letter in a tin under the bed.
letter · returned to sender · undelivered telegram · father · lost