Now You Must Go Out . . .

(Found here)

Summer was like your house;

you knew where each thing stood—
but now you must go out into your heart
as into a desert world.
The great solitude begins,
the days grow numb,
the wind strips the world
from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches
the sky looks down: it’s what you have.

~Rainer Maria Rilke (from Book of Hours: Love Poems to God)