Just because it is hidden, it is not bad;
It is only in the shade, and the sun
Makes the shade; it doesn’t make the shade glad.
But inside the shade—which you fear—
Are good things. Be happy in the dark. Drink your beer;
Do good things in the darkness. Cheer
The activities which linger in the shade.
They were put there for you. You were made
With the same care that stabilizes the sun,
Uncannily immobile in the sky—
Resembling your own patient eye—
Steady and bright for everyone.
The eye needs shade,
Just as beauty needs the dark,
And impressionists marry romanticists
For renaissance depictions of thick trees in the park.
Your spotty flesh will disgust you at times,
But its heaviness belongs to the sunlight climes.