anees akbar (6/12 / india)

The rain of a night and a day and a night
Stops at the light
Of this pale choked day. The peering sun
Sees what has been done.
The road under the trees has a border new
Of purple hue
Inside the border of bright thin grass:
For all that has
Been left by November leaves is torn
From hazel and thorn
And the greater trees.Throughout the copse
No dead leaf drops
On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,
At the wind's return:
The leaf lets out of the ash tree shed
Are thinly spread
In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,
As if they played.
What hangs from the myriad branches down there
So hard and bare
And on each twig of every tree in the dell
Uncountable
Crystals both dark and bright of the rain
That begins again.