When Death Comes

photo credit: Hamed Saber via photopin cc

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 measles-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 is 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.