Through the stricken air, through the buttonwood balls
Suspended on twig-strings, the rain fog circles and swallows,
Climbs the shallow plates of bark, the grooved trunks,
And wind-pellets go hurrying through the leaves.
Down, down the rain; down in plunging streaks
Of watered grey.
Rain in the beechwood trees. Rain upon the wanderer
Whose breath lies cold upon the mountainside,
Caught up with broken horns within the nettled grass,
With hoofs relinquished on the breathing stones
Eaten with rain-strokes.
Rain has buried her seed and her dead.
They spring together in this fertile air
Loud with thunder.