Videopoetry: When Death Comes

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. 

POET

Mary Oliver