Comforting Thought: When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

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When death comes

like a hungry bear in autumn,

when death comes and takes all of 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 daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, towards 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 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

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Quote extracted from: Mary Oliver – New and Selected Poems