Barking
poetryfoundation.org
Barking
A beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. The last line is 🔥
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... See more
For years and years I struggled just to love my life. And then the butterfly rose, weightless, in the wind. “Don’t love your life too much,” it said, and vanished into the world.
Mary Oliver • Dream Work
The morning before he died in the final year of his seventies, he drafted a poem containing these lines:
You can’t tell when strange things with meaning... See more
will happen. I’m [still] here writing it down
just the way it was. “You don’t have to
prove anything,” my mother said. “Just be ready
for what God sends.” I listened and put my hand
out in the sun again.