Mary Oliver

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.

Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

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 is 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.