Stepping Through "the Door" with Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes"

Rumi with Dervishes by OzarkArtist
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.



Mary Oliver

From New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press, 25 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02108-2892, ISBN 0 870 6819 5).
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Find the photos and art at these sites: here and here and here as well as here and here

The Peaceable Kingdom is famous by a Quaker Artist Edward Hicks - find source of painting and interesting bio for him here

The Door with the Pots and the Wise Old Man Omar are both hereNizwa souk, Oman© Eric Lafforguewww.ericlafforgue.com

Autumn River by Ozarkartist (painting near top) - Bride and Groom are Marc Chagall
And the Black Butterfly on Daisy as well as Lotus on US stamp by Jude here and here ...a humble artist who "loves to paint what LOVE gives. I put into canvas what I believe, "THERE IS A RELATIONSHIP OF LOVE IN ALL CREATED THINGS"."