_Autumn Rain_

THE plane leaves fall black and wet on the lawn;

The cloud sheaves in heaven's fields set droop and are drawn

in falling seeds of rain; the seed of heaven on my face

falling--I hear again like echoes even that softly pace

Heaven's muffled floor, the winds that tread out all the grain

of tears, the store harvested in the sheaves of pain

caught up aloft: the sheaves of dead men that are slain

now winnowed soft on the floor of heaven; manna invisible

of all the pain here to us given; finely divisible falling as rain.