Poetry Is Electric

lightening
Originally uploaded by Randuwa

Ever read something that simply jolts you? Takes your breath away. Knocks the wind out of you with it's profundity?

The experience can be addicting. And this pretty much explains the heart and soul of my love affair with poetry.

Here's a kick-ass poem that looks at life and declares, 'I ain't seen nothing yet!'

WHEN DEATH COMES

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 a 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 a 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,
and full of argument.

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

~ Mary Oliver
1935 -


Go forth and buy her books. Poets need to eat, too!