I sometimes remember this poem, which I read in high school. It always struck me as so beautiful. Today a friend sent me a forward with kids playing with baby skunks. So I looked it up.

Excerpt from 'Valentine for Ernest Mann'
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious.
He was a serious manwho lived in a serious way.
Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so.
He really
liked those skunks.
So, he re-invented themas valentines
and they became beautiful.
At least, to him.
And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.