Growing Darkness

  

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.

from her collection, A Thousand Mornings

 

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

The world descends into what? Hell? Purgatory? No, a liminal space and place where hopes for release and falling upward remain. Is it a place of dirt and disease, or just a resting place for renewal and budding possibilities? There are seeds that are buried deep within us, unseen, and yet brimming with possibility and new life. It’s a rich mash, this hummus. Resuming old ways is not an option. New ways beckon. No longer seeds but trees of life. Vivacity and vitality await us in the darkening days, and the glorious colors of the fall foliage remind us of the beauty of creation, and the love of our Creator. So “let us go on, cheerfully enough, this and every crisping day.”