A Bride of Amazement

It is almost the end of the year, the summer making the footpaths steam and my hair frizz. The letterbox fills with Christmas book catalogues that are always wonderful to ogle and circle.

Writing time alas, has been squeezed as it were into a very small window in an otherwise busy week, so instead of wonderful strides of writing, I have achieved only little postcard sizes of my thoughts. I miss the daily ritual of coffee in one hand, pen poised in the other, a conduit to whatever thoughts were buzzing around my head. However, I also know that the Pixie will only be Pixie sized for a short time and I don't want to have the feeling of missing things. I want to be mindful. I want my time to count. I don't want to simply, as this eloquent and gorgeous poem paints, 'simply visit the world'.

So for now, writing postcards, being mindful and keeping my vow to be a 'bride of amazement'.

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 measles-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 is 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.