I'M ON DESERT

I am of the desert, you of cultivation:
Simplicity to me, to you is desolation;
Heat, thirst, and agony I seek out on vacation,
While you look for elegance and quiet restoration.
I am of the ocean, you are of the shore:
You want fewer waves, I manufacture more;
You like tranquil bays, I love the rollers' roar;
In me, a wild emptiness; in you, a quiet core.
While I am like a stream, you are like a lake:
I babble over boulders, you reflections make;
I rush forward heedlessly, as bones and branches break;
You part before the piercing bow and then absorb the wake.
That such extremes should not be mingled might seem elementary;
But love can make the wildest contradictions complementary.