The leaves fall, fall as if from far away...by Rilke

A poem for a morning in Fall, a few leaves still cling to branches here in Virginia...

The leaves fall, fall as if from far away,

like withered things from gardens deep in sky;

they fall with gestures of renunciation.

And through the night the heavy earth falls too,

down from the stars, into the loneliness.

And we all fall. This hand must fall.

Look everywhere: it is the lot of all.

Yet there is one who holds us as we fall

eternally in his hands’ tenderness.

~Rainer Maria Rilke: Selected Poems, translated by C.F. MacIntyre