To The Rain

 

You reach me out of the age of the air 

 clear

 falling toward me

 each one new

 if any of you has a name

 it is unknown

 but waited for you here

 that long

 for you to fall through it knowing nothing

 hem of the garment

do not wait

 until I can love all that I am to know

 for maybe that will never be

 touch me this time

 let me love what I cannot know

 as the man born blind may love color

 until all that he loves

 fills him with color

--W.S Merwin

Generally when Merwin writes a poem "to" something or someone, the "I" in the poem is talking "to" that "person."  So he is addressing the rain (and, the raindrops.)  That seems clear enough in the first stanza.  But there are some tricky tenses and referents in the second.  Perhaps what waited was the unknown name:"rain."  Something perhaps is suggested about individuality and what they are in common, as well as the difference between the physical drops and their name.  The "it" could be the rain again, but it more likely seems to be the air the rain falls through. 

  In the next stanza, "hem of the garment" is addressed, often interpreted as a Biblical reference, an instrument of revelation perhaps, but it may still be (at the same time) the rain.  The imploring "touch me this time" would still be the rain but as a kind of revelation?  In any case, the final lines are very powerful.  The repetition of word sounds in the otherwise awkward  "maybe that will never be" sets up this powerful repetition of "color," partly through the music of the lines.  Another repetition in sound and sense is the word "know" (or "knowing") that appears three times in this short poem, each time in some way incomplete.  What lies beyond it can only be expressed in the final lines and what they suggest to us.