Mary Oliver died yesterday. 83 years old. She is a pulitzer prize winning poet, a writer who believed in mostly staying private and allowing the work to speak for her. Her work is largely nature-based, but cutthroat. Oliver loved taking walks and eventually hid pencils in the trees for herself among them, so she would never be without one should inspiration strike. Her work is something that starts on the outside and works inward. Oliver's words have stung and stuck me for a long, long time. Do musicians feel this way about one another when one of their own pass away? Do steel workers, acrobats, dancers, taxi drivers? Mary Oliver was one of us, a poet. Is this why the news is hitting so hard, sticking a bit more solid? I'm not sure. But her death feels like something heavy that I am carrying now. When Death Comes 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 s