The Association of Man and Woman
Whatever badness there was,
sometimes
was not of us
but between us.
Because there was goodness,
which felt like a sure base.
While badness only felt
like incidents upon it.
The badness was only
the way you and I needed to behave,
sometimes.
Not what we were.
The badness was only
a small,
transient,
insignificant
pain,
like the tiny, instant
pain
from the prick of a rose’s thorn,
taking joy,
for a second,
away from the fragrance of the rose.
by Peggy Freydberg
from Poems from the Pond
Hybrid nation, 2015
.
—The title is from T.S. Eliot’s “East Coker”
.