from Almanac

Better to be awake at night in sympathy with clocks
than to wander vaguely
    through days.
Better to feel a hush in the yard.
To cultivate a faith in strangers,
in air and evening, in spots of sun
    rising up the high oaks.
They are the harbor lights returned to you,
    the people you loved returned to you,
    the long sleep of pilgrims.
To pass safely through days free of sickness.
If you are deprived of hope
to still sometimes feel its power.
And the tides at night rippling back from
    cold sand—to sense them
even if you have never seen them.
We are fine rain and shining streets.
We throw away things of great value and feel confused.
Seize upon the smallest arguments and call them huge.
(Some days I am small beyond measure.
Some days I am the fence the field the trees.)

--Joanna Klink