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