When Death Comes

When death comes

like a hungry bear in autumn

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 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 consider eternity as another possibility.

And think of each flower, as common

as a daisy field 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 its 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 is 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 of simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver