For a Winter Wren

In the first rain after a dry summer,

Small as a leaf, the color of fallen leaves,

You sang at the foot of a fallen cedar

Like a dream of singing, more quiet,

Mote intricate than the mass of stems

And moss-light roots you lighted on

Where the earth still clung to the dead, a song

Gentle and distant, nearly disappearing

Under the hush of the rain,

The soft trills rising out of next to nothing

To claim this side of silence.