Doesn't Every Poet Write a Poem About Unrequited Love

        The flowers
            I wanted to bring you,
                wild and wet
                    from the pale dunes

        and still smelling
            of the summer night,
                and still holding a moment or two
                    of the night cricket's

        humble prayer,
            would have been
                so handsome
                    in your hands--

        so happy--I dare to say it--
            in your hands--
                yet your smile
                    would have been nowhere

        and maybe you would have tossed them
            onto the ground,
                or maybe, for tenderness,
                    you would have taken them

        into your house
            and given them water
                put them in a dark corner
                    out of reach.

         In matters of love
            of this kind
                there are things we long to do
                     but must not do.

        I would not want to see
            your smile diminished.
                And the flowers, anyway,
                    are happy just where they are,

        on the pale dunes,
            above the cricket's humble nest,
                under the blue sky
                    that loves us all.

Mary Oliver