Reflection/Looking Ahead

I came upon part of this Mary Oliver poem in the epigraph of a book I just started. I love the imagery and all the beautiful ideas that the words conjure up. It's not about the New Year but somehow it still conjures up that sense of reflection and looking ahead that I'm feeling. 

In Blackthorn Woods

by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars   of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,   the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders   of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is   nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned   in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side   is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world   you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it   against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. ====

I hope you are having an enjoyable New Year's Eve whatever you are doing. I'm knitting, reading, and beginning as I mean to go on. May the coming year bring you health, joy, contentment, and a renewed sense of purpose. Happy New Year!