The first man to dare ask God about love
only wanted to know where it resides,
"So I may discern if it ever flees,"
he explained, and God laughed and went away.
Dejected, the man turned inward instead;
surely his body could not reveal lies.
He asked his heart if it knew where love lies,
to which it replied, "I know nothing of love
or its effort, ask me of music instead."
The man frowned; the heart paused. "My joy resides
in the beat that chases fear of death away.
I hide not love because, at sight, it flees."
The man wondered why love so often flees
from safety, and if it conjures up lies
to tell the soul and push the mind away
from any truth. Maybe, he thought, this love
knows not of constancy and so resides
nowhere near, but in a distant place instead.
And the lungs seemed the place to ask. Instead,
the man found his own deflated. "Air flees,"
the lungs lamented. "We know it resides
in all worldly places, we just hate that it lies."
"And love?" the man interjected. They sighed. "Love...
doesn't live here anymore. It went away."
The man blinked. What do they mean by away?
There can be nowhere else to go instead.
All the burned bridges...how foolish is love!
When one motion becomes constant, it flees;
when it happens upon a truth, it lies.
I can no longer care where it resides.
(But love's a wily creature that resides
in that sliver of space, from man's heart away,
between his first and second rib. It lies,
not doubt, because it loves the chase instead
of the stagnant life where man waits until it flees
to give it notice. Such is the nature of love.)
Somewhere, God laughs along with love,
and bids the inquiries of man away.
The universe has much to think about instead.
