Overheard at Booth 4: Hart Crane's Grandmother's Love Letters

This little gem was sent to me by poets.org yesterday.   Had to read it several times, because it kept revealing nuanced sounds on each reading.   Mainly sounds of the rain, and occasionally the sound of a sheet of paper being gently slid behind one another.

My Grandmother's Love Letters by Hart Crane     There are no stars tonight 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.        Today's poem is in the public domain.

 

About This Poem Hart Crane spent a large portion of his formative years living at his grandmother's home in Cleveland, Ohio, and perusing her extensive library.   Today is the anniversary of Hart Crane's birth.