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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