Good ol' e.e. cummings. A Harvard-trained poet who volunteered for ambulance duty in World War I, and was captured as a spy -- he knew what he was talking about. The well-meaning care packages, while great and all, don't really take the edge off. What's really needed is something you can't actually send:
my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent
war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting
for,
my sister
isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that
i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
-- e.e. cummings, circa 1928(?)
