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 the world.
Oliver gives us rules to live by, especially in her last line. When Death comes knocking, you don't want simply to be a visitor on this planet, waiting for the mothership to come and take you home. Like Oliver, you should be in the world, of the world. Every day, another encounter with wonder and amazement. Even the simplest field daisy is a gift, singularly beautiful.
I spent most of this afternoon preparing for something happening at the library tomorrow. It's called Joy Fest, and it is a day-long celebration of my friend, Helen, and all the joy she brought into this world during her time on it. There's going to be poetry and literature and music and singing bowls meditation and yoga and art and healing and chocolate. And laughter. Lots of laughter. If there was one thing Helen loved to do, it was to laugh.
If all of that sounds like too much, then you understand in a small way who Helen was. She was, as Oliver puts it, the bride married to amazement. The bridegroom, taking the world into her arms. She reveled in everyone she met, made them feel as if talking to them was the greatest pleasure she'd ever known. If you knew Helen, you somehow knew that goodness and love were the most powerful forces in the universe.
Don't misunderstand me. Helen was human, with all the attendant failings and struggles. She sometimes gave into anger, sorrow, maybe despair at times. Yet, she knew that even darkness could be beautiful, and she shed her light into it. (I remember, in particular, the night after Donald Trump won the 2016 U. S. presidential election. Helen and I had a particularly dark conversation, venting all of our fears and frustrations and worries. At the end, after almost an hour of shared sadness, Helen said, "We aren't going to give up or give in, Marty. There's more amazing people in the world than there are assholes." And we laughed and laughed until we were crying.)
That was my friend Helen. A Martian girl who visited our planet and fell in love with it.
Saint Marty is blessed to have had so, so many close encounters of the Helen kind.
Martian Girl
by: Helen Haskell Remien
Oh, Mother, don't tell me it isn't safe,
that we are rotting inside, that we will die
if we don't enter that ship and take off.
Don't you see! I have tasted it, Mother, the salt of sea,
the ripeness of berry, the very soil we are standing upon,
and I have heard it, Mother, a sound more divine
than the voices of the high beings on our planet,
a song, these earthlings call it, emitted from
their own body home, and my body has moved
to this sound, felt it inside me, and the wind . . .
they call it wind, this wild air, and they have trees, Mother,
trees with names, giant sequoia, tiny scrub pine.
I want to cling to the trees. I am not ready to say goodbye
to the trees and to the sea that carries me in its currents,
not ready to say goodbye to the mountains
topped with the wonder of snow. I want to dive down
into the white billowy bank and swim my way
to a shore of crystal flakes.
Oh, Mother, must we go?
We have learned to feast at their table,
and I want the whole meal, here, on this planet
that is thrumming with an energy we have never felt before,
vibrating in its rocky soil. There are rocks, red rock cliffs
that light up like fire, and there is a drumbeat
in these fiery hills. Oh, Mother, must we leave
a place we have learned to love, that lights us up?
I will carry back with me the memory,
the vibration and love these humans
have dished out so freely, so unwittingly.
Oh, Mother, I will pack it all in my bag,
the laughter, the light, a song I have learned
that is now my very own.
