Lines written in the days of growing darkness (Mary Oliver)

Every year we have been 

witness to it: how the 

world descends 

 

into a rich mash, in order that 

it may resume. 

And therefore

who would cry out 

 

to the petals on the ground 

to stay, 

knowing as we must 

how the vivacity of what was is married 

 

to the vitality of what will be? 

I don’t say 

it’s easy, but 

what else will do 

 

if the love one claims to have for the world 

be true? 

 

So let us go on, cheerfully enough, 

this and every crisping day, 

 

though the sun be swinging east, 

and the ponds be cold and black, 

and the sweets of the year be doomed. 

--Mary Oliver, 

Lines Written in the Days
of Growing Darkness

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