When Death Comes....

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 measle-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 daily, 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'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.


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


- Mary Oliver -


(New and Selected Poems 1992)