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 
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.

-Mary Oliver