Mary Oliver, Poem 102: 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 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, 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