Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

I've returned to this poem every fall for probably five or six years now. Summer is my favorite season, and autumn is bittersweet. This year is no different, maybe even more-so because it has been a joyful year and I'm sad to see it drawing to a close. The first few leaves are falling to the ground and my two remaining best friends in the area are moving to Tulsa and to Germany. I haven't found another piece that gets at this sharpness as well as Mary Oliver's "Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness." I actually wrote my previous post just after sifting through this poem.

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

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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Tabitha and Jamie,

I am happy for you as you leave in the same way I am happy the leaves are falling. I have no doubt it is what you are supposed to be doing. That the result will be hard-won growth after a time that may be dark and difficult. As Mary sums up so well, "I don't say it's easy, but what else will do if the love one claims to have for the world (and for one's friends) be true?" Our time together in NWA was longer than I dared hope for and I am grateful. I enjoy our quirky keeping in touch through all manner of things--Pinterest and Instagram and Marco Polo videos and snail mail and random pictures and Amazon packages and messages that start with, "Hey, remember when?"

I'm proud of you and I love you very much.