Thorns 2014 by Drea
Helpers and friends provide protection and deepen our relationship with our creative selves. http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/thorns-2014-drea-jensen.html

A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air
By Mary Oliver

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 darkness,
would be without expression–
that love itself, without it’s 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.