“When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver, contributed by Marcky Antonio (2025)
“When Death Comes” from New and Selected Poems: Volume One 1992
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.
Conversations on grief often emphasize how one deals with the loss of a loved one, how one navigates the cognitive conflict between the persistence of semantic memory and the episodic memory of their death. What is far less discussed is what comes after the grieving process—the existential questions on life, death, and meaning. To help confront this difficult topic, I present Mary Oliver’s poem, “When Death Comes.” In this poem, Oliver reminds us to approach the uncertainty of death with curiosity, rather than fear, even whilst validating fear as an appropriate response. Given how short life is, and how inevitable the march of time, she encourages us to shift our perspective on life. To embrace the brevity. To find joy in the simple fact that we are alive. To place less meaning on accumulating accolades and, instead, towards appreciating the mundane that gives the world its richness. To pat ourselves on the back for having the courage to face death and the will to live. What I love about this poem is that Mary Oliver describes her life as being “married to amazement” and “taking the world into [her] arms.” As we deal with existential questions, we must ask ourselves: did we live in this world, or did we merely visit it?