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.

                -Mary Oliver,
                 “When Death Comes”