“Waking to the Rain” by W.S. Merwin

The Night of my birthday
I woke from a dream
of harmony
suddenly hearing
an old man not my father
I said but it was
my father grasping
my name as he fell
on the stone steps outside
just under the window
in the rain
I do not know
how many times
he may have called
before I woke
I was lying
in my parents’ room
in the empty house
both of them dead
that year
and the rain was falling
all around me
the only sound