Monday, September 14, 2015

Love itself, without its pain (Mary Oliver)

  A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air  
  In the morning 
it shuffles, unhurried, 
across the wet fields 
in its black slippers, 
in its coal-colored coat 
with the white stripe like a river 
running down its spine --
a glossy animal with a quick temper 
and two bulbs of such diatribe under its tail 
that when I see it I pray 
not to be noticed --
not to be struck 
by the flat boards of its anger - 
for the whole haul of its smell
is unendurable --
like tragedy
that can't be borne,
like death
that has to be buried, or burned --
but a little of it is another story --
for it's true, isn't it,
in our world,
that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns
are a single thing --
that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkenss,
would be without expression --
that love itself, without its pain, would be
no more than a shruggable comfort.
Lately, I have noticed, when the skunk's temper has tilted
in the distance,
and the acids are floating everywhere,
and I am touched, it is all, even in my nostrils and my throat,
   as the brushing of thorns;
and I stand there
thinking of the old, wild life of the fields, when, as I remember it,
I was shaggy, and beautiful,
like the rose.
--Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (volume one)
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