These last few weeks before the time change, when the mornings are so dark until almost 8:00, are tough. (The weeks after the time change are also tough because suddenly 7:00 pm feels like midnight because it’s been dark for hours. I think we have a theme here.)
Here’s a poem to fit that theme.
Lines Written In The Days of Growing Darkness
by 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.