CURRENT MOON

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I Have Passed The Test. I Will Diminish, And Go Into The West, And Remain Molly


Farewell, Molly Ivins. May the Goddess guard you. May you find your way to the Summerlands. May your friends and family know peace.

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.

1 comment:

SolSionnach said...

Oh, Molly. We will miss you so! It breaks my heart that you didn't live to see Dubya, Cheney and the rest of that rotting junta get their just desserts.

Thank you for poignant laugh after poignant belly laugh.

Godspeed.