When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver

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 a 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.

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a very timely serendipity...