Thursday, January 22, 2026

Via GBF]: 2 poems for Jeff


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Richard Azzolini

Wed, Jan 21, 8:12 PM (15 hours ago)
to Gay

    Jeff and I both loved these poems.

It was a joy knowing him.  

Richard


When Death Comes, 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.     


Contemplation on no-coming and no-going - thich nhat hanh

This body is not me.

I am not limited by this body.

I am life without boundaries.

I have never been born,

and I have never died.


Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,

manifestations from my wondrous true mind.


Since before time, I have been free.

Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,

sacred thresholds on our journey.

Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.


So laugh with me,

hold my hand,

let us say good-bye,

say good-bye, to meet again soon.


We meet today.

We will meet again tomorrow.

We will meet at the source every moment.

We meet each other in all forms of life.


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