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.
