Small Quibble

The following by Mary Oliver is one of her better efforts. I sometimes find her poetry a bit precious for my taste, but this one’s a keeper. I do have a small quibble, however. Bears are hungriest not in autumn but in spring, after winter hibernation has taken its toll. In autumn, if they’ve done a proper job all summer, they’re getting fat and sleepy – just sayin’…

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.

More on bears…

 

Bonus Art Appreciation Visual

 

Last but not least…