A Sunday Poem | Growing Darkness

It’s been a while since I shared a Sunday Poem, but I put a sticky note on the first week of September so that I would remember to share this poem with you all today. And it’s an even cooler balm to the soul now than it was months ago when I first read it.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness | Mary Oliver | found in Devotions

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 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.

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Friends – the world seems dark in so many ways right now. It’s been relentless. I’m hoping you can find some solace in Mary Oliver’s words. Take good care.