Where Pain Is Unexplained

Where pain is unexplained, I liken it to love.

I liken it to childhood, too.

No? Isn’t it like looking deeply into brown eyes,

Into green, into gray, into blue?

Where pain is unexplained, I see sweet ripples on the pond.

If swimming is to lose, is drowning living on?

I think it must be so, where love is true,

And pain is unexplained.

February 27, after an early-morning walk in softly falling snow.

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William Michaelian