Skunk

In a poem about meeting a skunk one morning, and fearing it's awful, deathly,scent, Mary Oliver says:
[it 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 its pain, would be
no more than shruggable comfort...

from "A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air"