The Sound
Today the sound of rain is over my head, in the leaves.
For a month it will get more and more silent
As the canopy thins, even as each drop more directly
hits its mark it will be more and more like a whisper
of something going away, until the level of leaf is ground
and then in the first cold rain a new sound like a cough
rattling to life instead of death, louder and colder will
arise from the earth, for a few times anyway reminding
us that nothing not even death stops talking until the
first snowflake tells it utterly and quietly to shut up.
Translations from the English 
Keep talking, Jeff. Thank you.
I second that, Ann.
Thanks, Jeff.
Thanks to you both! I almost think I was channeling C., she of the Optional Poetry blog, when I wrote this.
It all counts, Jeff.
Wow! How you capture this season! Just wonderful.
Thanks–such change in the fall. It is full of unique sensory phenomena like this–like, there’s a height i am used to hearing rain at…
Yes! I understand. The leaves may be dying but the earth is ripe with material to inspire us.