My Grandmother's Love Letters

There are no stars to-night
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.

There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother's mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.

Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.

And I ask myself:
"Are your fingers long enough to play
Old keys that are but echoes:
Is the silence strong enough
To carry back the music to its source
And back to you again
As though to her?"

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand;
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

Hart Crane

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My favorite Hart Crane. Easy to read. Beautifully written.

"Over the greatness of such space/Steps must be gentle"

I choke up every time I read those lines.

Time to go clear out the kitchen. New floor goes in
today.

I wait until I am jobless to complete my kitchen renovation.

Good thing Grandma gave me some money for graduation.
I know she's proud for me and of me and wanted to do
something, so she gave me some money, and I shall
purchase the tile with that money.

Glad Hart Crane came to mind this morning. Especially
this poem.