Today I Was Happy, So I Made This Poem (by James Wright)

As the plump squirrel scampers

Across the roof of the corncrib,

The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness,

And I see that it is impossible to die.

Each moment of time is a mountain.

An eagle rejoices in the oak trees of heaven,

Crying

This is what I wanted.

The Dugout

Heading to the basement,

I am under siege,

surrounded by rations of tea,

and animal crackers,

and enough reading material

to hold my attention

for a few hours.

I stare up at exposed

ceiling beams, and electric chords,

and pipework, and wonder

if they would take a message

for me, passing it from house to house

for miles and miles until it got

to you. And here

is what it would say:

"There is a dragon outside, and I have to kill it."

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,

ending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When its 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.

The Journey (by Mary Oliver)

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice-

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do-

determined to save

the only life you could save.