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.
The Excrement Poem
by Maxine Kumin
It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what must have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.
We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,
or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.
And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap
coprinus mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, spatter
it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.
I posted both of these poems because the subject matter could not be more opposite. The first poem by Crane is on a precious topic that is usually very close and fond to the heart. In Kumin's poem, the topic is something that no one would consider beautiful and yet it is written so eloquently. This really shows that poetry is a true art form and something beautiful can be written on just about any topic.
If you've never heard her music, you've been deprived. She has an absolutely amazing voice, only topped by her lyrics. She is in every form a true artist.
Sometimes these quotes really make me think, and I'm glad I get them in the morning because it helps me put things into perspective and start my day off in the right frame of mind. I'm so grateful for where I am today. A couple of years ago I never could have imagined how incredibly blessed I'd be today. 
I'm exhausted. I thought going to school when I was younger was stressful, but now it's even worse. I have so many more things to worry about. I go food shopping after I get out of class, I try to start dinner in the mornings or at least remember to take something out... I just need a break. I'm exhausted! We tried to do some home improvements over the weekend and a simple paint job turned into a weekend long project...I guess technically longer, considering I was at Home Depot 6:00 this morning! Just one night I'd like to be able to get to bed at the same time as my husband. Bleh. Just a rant.
The last good book I read is Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank. It was a real page turner and I could not put it down. The book contained a lot of emotion and was just a really good read. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is in search of a good book at the moment. 