Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. 
Just keep going. No feeling is final. –Rainer Maria Rilke

When I need to renew my hope 
for another day, I take myself, 
with my two dogs, to the nearby 

ravine. Where they can nose
the leaves of gold ginkgoes,
or brown oaks rain-stamped 

and trodden. Where I can hear 
someone, in a house up the hill, 
playing piano in the dying light 

of day. Where down below,
all is rust and mist, piles of aged 
pumpkins laid out for the deer 

like forgotten feasts. Where a tree 
with a thousand heart-shaped 
leaves reminds me No feeling 

is final. Where, up ahead, 
a woman in red rain boots squints 
at white sky, pointing to the top 

of a telephone pole. Here, a feathered 
head rotates with watchful elegance.
Black eyes, shining and ancient 

as creek stones, grace us briefly. 
In their stillness, I can almost hear
the unseen waters begin to sing again.