Autumn

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.