When Death Comes

When Death Comes

Mary Oliver

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 curiousity, wondering

what is it going to be like,

that cottage in the darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and 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 music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to earth.

When it is 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.

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.

Picture found here.