Rain Before Nightfall

Late August, and the long soft hills

are wet with light:

a silken dusk, with shifting thunder

in the middle distance. Chills

of fall have not yet quite

brought everything to ruin.

And I stop to look, to listen

under eaves. The yellow rain

slides down the lawn,

it feathers through the pine,

makes lilacs glisten,

all the waxy leaves. The air

is almost fit for drinking,

and my heart is drenched,

my thirst for something

more than I can see

is briefly quenched.