Love Lore
What is love?
The North Star guiding
a lost seafarer home
or the Siren’s song luring
him to the rocky shores?
Is it frolicking in the moonlit nights
in a field of flowers
or trudging across
an arid, scorching desert?
Is it a freeway to bliss and joy
or a meandering trail
through the rugged terrain
of grief and woe?
Is it a cup of hemlock
or a chalice of nectar?
Is it a snake pit
or a bridge over the chasm
of hatred and bigotry?
Is it an ever-elusive mirage
or the rock of Gibraltar?
Love is all that and more
and yet it’s nothing,
A mere emotion, a feeling,
At first blush, irrelevant
and yet it’s an impetus, a catalyst –
An euphoria permeating our entire being.
It is here, it is there
and it is everywhere…
Yet, it is nowhere!
It creates mayhem and chaos
if it turns and walks away.
Love knows no boundaries,
It follows no customs or creed;
It cares not for any
race or language.
Not unlike air and water
or the enlivening sunlight –
Vital in good measures
devastating in excess,
Vexing as a thorn but
as enticing as the fragrance.
Love is but love.
No one has seen it
yet everyone is touched by it,
Its constant presence is overwhelming
Yet you’ll never find
if you go looking for it,
It traverses distant shores,
yet it doggedly never
leaves your threshold.
You are born with it
but can never own it,
Forever it hovers around you
but never can you rein it in.
“Love is a many-splendored thing”*
Yet none can explain its true meaning,
It would call through a bullhorn
but you may not hear it,
It merely whispers in your ears
and turns your life topsy-turvy,
More furious than the flowing lava
It would give you the chills if provoked.
He indeed is a poor soul
bereft of hopes and dreams
who befriendeth not love.
(*Love is a many-splendored thing", Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster.)
~"What Love is?" contest by Bobby May
Copyright © Abdul Malik | Year Posted 2019
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