Ursula K. Le Guin

Mother rain, manifold, measureless, falling on fallow, on field and forest, on house-roof, low hovel, high tower, downwelling waters all-washing, wider than cities, softer than sisterhood, vaster than countrysides, calming, recalling: return to us, teaching our troubled souls in your ceaseless descent to fall, to be fellow, to feel to the root, to sink in, to heal, to sweeten the sea.

AUTUMN gold of amber red of ember brown of umber all September MCCOY CREEK Over the bright shallows now no flights of swallows. Leaves of the sheltering willow dangle thin and yellow. OCTOBER At four in the morning the west wind moved in the leaves of the beech tree with a long rush and patter of water, first wave of the dark tide coming in. SOLSTICE On the longest night of all the year in the forests up the hill, the little owl spoke soft and clear to bid the night be longer still. THE WINDS OF MAY are soft and restless in their leafy garments that rustle and sway making every moment movement. HAIL The dogwood cowered under the thunder and the lilacs burned like light itself against the storm-black sky until the hail whitened the grass with petals.

Years do odd things to identity. What does it mean to say I am that child in the photograph at Kishamish in 1935? Might as well say I am the shadow of a leaf of the acacia tree felled seventy years ago moving on the page the child reads. Might as well say I am the words she read or the words I wrote in other years, flicker of shade and sunlight as the wind moves through the leaves.