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 his 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 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 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.
– Mary Oliver
Your poem is beautiful and so is your blog! Heather Hess
Heather, I’m glad you enjoyed the poem too. I love the line, “I was a bride married to amazement”. Thanks too, for your kind words…
I love this poem but the last line is so… unsatisfying, like the poem was published in a rush, before it was finished. Sigh, so close to being perfect
Hey Laurie, I hadn’t thought of the last line as unsatisfying, and I don’t know if I’m just being suggestible, but I think you might be onto something. But then, when I read it again, thinking about your comments, I wonder if that’s kind of the point of that line, “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
It is sort of a listless statement but then so is that kind of life…maybe that ‘unsatisfying’ line embodies that type of life; a life where one just visits on the surface instead of engaging and going deeper.
Thank you for making me think about it with a different perspective.