Wednesday, April 4, 2012

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;


when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,


I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?


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,


and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,


and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,


and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.


When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.


When it is 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.


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


Mary Oliver

No comments: