Do you have blurry days? Way too fast days? Way too shallow days? Me too. Often! We all do. And sometimes on those blurry, fast, shallow days it's worth taking a minute to pause and meditate on the wondrous beauty that is life itself so that we might remember to always steer ourselves a little closer to being 'a bride married to amazement.' This poem appeared in the collection New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver. It was published in 1992 and won the National Book Award.
Poem:
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
Sign Up for a Dose of Inspiration:
Every other week, I send an email out with one of my favorite speeches, essays or poems. No ads, no sponsors, no spam, and nothing for sale. Just a dose of inspiration or beauty!