Because Everyone Has a Soul

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

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 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.