When Death Comes

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When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

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to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

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when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

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I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

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And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

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and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

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and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending as all music does, toward silence,

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and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

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When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

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When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

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I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

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~ Mary Oliver

(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)

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