Earth Now and Evensong

Today the poet Rilke has the words I seek. A feather pillow of snow has shaken itself over the summer picnic table, the brown leafstrewn earth. The lawn chair where I used to sit for morning coffee has been commandeered by a red squirrel. Too cold now to be outdoors, the autumn shift from riverside to fireside is already complete. Yet I feel happiness surging up from within me. Rilke understands: "Summer was like your house: you know where each thing stood. Now you must go out into your heart as onto  a vast plain. Now the immense loneliness begins. The days go numb, the wind sucks the world from your senses  like withered leaves. Through the empty branches the sky remains. It is what you have. Be earth now and evensong. Be the ground lying under that sky. Be modest now, like a  thing ripened until it is real, so that he who began it all can feel you when he reaches for you."