When I read a book, there are so many pages.  What will I carry forth into the rest of my life?  Will it be the sweet memory of a person, or also something they said?

I love the novel Northern Lights, written by Philip Pullman.  Lyra, 12-years-old, is an inspiration to me.  She is one brave girl.  I smile when I think of her.

Is there a quotation, something for me to hold onto?  I know:

“I want to come North,” Lyra said so they could all hear it.  “I want to come and help rescue the kids.”

“We will go,” she said to Pantalaimon.  “Let ’em try to stop us.  We will !” 

***

Or a song …

Angel by Sarah McLaughlan.  I remember her voice soaring as she gave us the words.  I remember being entranced with the beauty, with the sadness.

And a few lines linger …

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear

***

Then a poem.  Here is “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver.  The whole thing.

Will you take a line or two with you as you leave?  Will I?

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

***

For me, it’s these words which will remain:

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement

Those few are enough for me.

And so, as my Wednesday joins with Thursday, I take these:

We will go!

This dark cold hotel room

A bride married to amazement

On I go … accompanied