“I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world”

Mary Oliver

A Sunflower field in Michigan, my Michigan — Author’s photo

Mary Oliver’s poem ‘When Death Comes’ is her most famous for a reason: It resonates with everyone.

It’s here:

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…