taking the world into my arms

November 2022

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 iceburg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door with 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 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