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 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.