A Meaningful Poem on Death

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.   I don't want to end up simply having visited this world

Afterthoughts and Us

All of the places 

and trails,

together 

you and I.

Over the mountains and

into our deserts, then

beyond the world we know.

 

Our steps a little slower

and mine less than yours,  

remembering the places we lay

laughing at ourselves

and crying for lost moments.

 

We once took it all so casually,

now looking back, I wonder.

 

One year isolated

on our own without what?

Will it ever be normal again?

and what exactly is normal?

Who is the judge?