the vivacity to the vitality

No, it's not Poetry Friday and yes, the days are already getting longer (gotta love living in a place where on the shortest day of the year, we still had 10 hours of light)~feel compelled to share this gorgeous piece by Mary Oliver.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

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
is 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.