Through sere trees and beheaded
grasses the slow rain falls.
Hay fills the barn; only the rake
and one empty wagon are left
in the field. In the ditches
goldenrod bends to the ground.
Even at noon the house is dark.
In my room under the eaves
I hear the steady benevolence
of water washing dust
raised by the haying
from porch and car and garden
chair. We are shorn
and purified, as if tonsured.
The grass resolves to grow again,
receiving the rain to that end,
but my disordered soul thirsts
after something it cannot name.
~Jane Kenyon “August Rain, After Haying” from Collected Poems

August arrives in the dark

we are not even asleep and it is here
with a gust of rain rustling before it…

but in the stillness after the rain ends
nothing is to be heard but the drops falling
one at a time from the tips of the leaves
into the night and I lie in the dark
listening to what I remember
while the night flies on with us into itself
~W.S. Merwin from “Nocturne II” from The Shadow of Sirius

A long-awaited August rain arrives in the night
and like the ground and plants,
I look skyward
letting the clouds weep on me,
cleansing me of dust.

Will I restore like the
brown and dying blade of grass,
turning green and lush in a matter of days?

Is there enough benevolence from the sky
to cleanse and settle my grime,
yielding yet more harvest? 

I thirst for what I cannot name. 
The mystery is, when I’m drenched,
thirst and dust settled,
I’m aching for more.