Zach Klein Week 7- Mary Oliver #2

 

Many of us are afraid of what happens to us after death. Death is rarely talked about because it causes so much controversy. A lot of people believe that there is no true answer of knowing what happens after life on Earth. Mary Oliver uses metaphors and imagery in her poem “When Death Comes” to tackle the idea of death. 

    Mary begins her poem by comparing death to a bear dying from starvation. She uses a visual comparison to nature, something in which she has a passion for writing about. By describing nature, Oliver is helping her audience imagine her descriptions more easily. After describing a few images relating to death Oliver wonders “what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?” She thinks to herself of what death means in the future and the expounds on what that means for her now. She follows the previous line with “And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea.” According to Oliver we don’t necessarily know the end of life, so we should take advantage of our time and live as a community. She compares each human life to a flower, a tune, and a lion to show that we all bring something different to our community in different ways. At the end of her poem, Oliver says she doesn’t “want to end up simply having visited this world,” meaning she wants to know that she lived to the fullest. Overall, Oliver’s poem does a wonderful job of using metaphors and imagery to convey her opinion on death and how to face that fear during your lifetime. 

In my opinion, this poem does a good job of showing how we can use death to our advantage instead of being fearful of it. It doesn’t define death as a certain thing, but shows we must find meaning in this world while we have the privilege to live in it. Death gives us a certain perspective on life as we don’t know what come after.