When Death Comes

by 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 measles-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 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'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.

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Thank you to all of you who recently posted such lovely stories in my comments and offered such sweet sympathies. Your words are definitely music for my eyes.