The Strings of Love   It was the waves that moved us together, the natural rhythms and   motions. You, a companion, a ship, and I merely fish in a vast ocean. And winds turned your mast that I might be caught   up hook, line, and sinker in the bait When the strings of love were cast upon the waters   and made waves to seal my fate. The truth is my love for you is deep and unending, but   don’t think me a fool. Though of you I am whet, I am of a vast school. Fooled, thinking it was a simple headdress, benign, yet it was a tool. There was magic in the hair to release love, and there you cast its   spool. Releasing the fishnet, the silky black seductive motion   so pleasantly and gently waving, I was captivated by its release, your fingers gently playing. And caught in ecstasy from the rhythm, dancing and gently swaying, I could not escape your net, entangled and tethered to you, obeying. Thus, captured upon the bow, seized and in seine, to you I   became aware. Helpless to bow to your wish, a fish under the   power of your crown I saw appear. When a bow released the beauty behind the strings, I was   caught up while you rolled back up the hair. I was lured as you played me, the bow upon strings of   love. Never a violinist had I heard so fair. So by notes so high and low, I could not avoid the trance   that called me to dance in the rapture, Being pulled by your strings in deep waters and carried up   to such heights as a fish within your capture. So was your net so wide, deep, and extraordinarily cast That none could escape such hands of dexterity   or avoid capture to proceed past. Do set me free in your spring of love and crown me king with your kiss, As you are the queen who can offer me true release from bondage as a fish. Love’s Occupation If love has an occupation, it is this: To take its companionship in search of its dish And take a course atop the waters and sail the main And prepare the strings of love to catch up fish into its seine. Love sends a lure to bait us up, revealing its world   luminous and sun kissed, And mankind wanders in darkness unbeknownst is its   existence, that by love they’re being fished. Casting its lure, a hook, and net, and in our midst it skims, Looking for the love of deep waters in which it swims. ’Tis only a matter of time before we are lured by the bait   and it gets its wish That shall one day reveal that love and its world with a kiss. Thence upon its reel shall uplift our hearts and   bring to surface such emotions As love makes a meal of its prized catch—a perfect   dish found in the waters of deep devotion. Admittedly, for its plate I, too, hungered, so I took    the bait and did partake and did ingest So that course of love with you I shared, and I    entered your mouth at your behest. Insane I become while we partake of what our hearts have baited. In that meal we become full of each other until our hearts are satiated. In companionship we are, and this we’ve swallowed and now digest: It’s a course of love that to its end shall reveal us together   as one flesh. You think I took the bait while I was caught up in confusion, But to me, this course with you I take; I am under no illusion. Like so, love casts a net unto itself And searches deep the waters for its wealth.             So captivated by her,             In companionship I enter.             I’m taken by the allure             To a world of her treasure.             In seine of the capture             I found in such rapture             Love is a lure             To come hither. Mission of Love From a world of love you came. I see now where you’ve been, And a companionship you’ve taken to conduct love’s mission. There is a belief love has, and I saw its promise in your visage, That a world of truth it leads, and you’re on a mission to spread its message. So convincing is your witness, a missionary you stand   to that world and proceed to guide me there To follow love, and its course becomes so plain I    take the ship Companion you steer. As I’m pulled up from the salt waters of misery by   love’s benevolent rope And come closer to its world of joy bound by that hope, The direction your eyes take us, I yield to that stare. Wherever it shall lead us, I willingly go without fear. So upon that vessel of love I enter, for better or for worse, Yet your eyes reveal it shall be uplifting converse. Taking the vessel we entered, we go in a direction where the   heart is whetted And follow its promise in which we arise; our faith   determines where the ship is headed. We do not become submerged by the elements, but arise toward a   better world revealed in the communion I hold with you In faith of that higher realm and its promise in which we   are uplifted and in which we see in view. And follow that promise of a luminous and colorful   world I witnessed and saw in you. The eye held that truth of love’s promise and the destination we   head unto. I believe! For its message I have witnessed, and also   take its vessel on its mission and direction, And join the way of truth and light that your iris reveals in its   reflection. Let the rainbow in the iris refl ect the covenant as we set sail. That made eye, that it would never leave this course to    that world, but follow its promise without fail.

	Fisher of Men Your love illuminates your visage and harks to days of yore, Before the hopes and dreams of love became darkened and impure. Long since sullied in broken dreams and distrust,    our own hope of love exists, But your hope in that better world with a trusting heart persists. And in the purity of love we’ve long since defiled, You believe in hope that a world of true love we may still be reconciled. Oh, and so you’re the weaker vessel, and the preoccupation with the hair, That in such beauty you might captivate us within    your ship that we may sail together there. But we are made in our own weakness, like fish unto    that bait of such brightness you restore. Out of the darkness of the oceans, you bring us    to your bow in a world so pure. And so we’re taken to approach that world of love with so strong a witness That you do not fail to restore all hope in its existence. It is by such hope in innocence and trust that men you woo, And in that virgin love, our thoughts are again made pure and new. And raises our spirits high with love so strong a manifestation, We become steadfast once again and do not retreat    waiting for that dream’s revelation. And may all your dreams come true, and may they    be as beautiful as you made mine, But if that dream should include me, it would be my pleasure to oblige thine. That I reside in that world that came in your view, For as long you have me in your dreams, I shall be there too. Don’t you know that of that world you are a witness then, That while you uplift our hearts with restored faith to    love, to love you are a fisher of men? Beacon For I well know the elements of the old world that can stir    up and take us off the course of love in doubt. I’ve seen the fallen ships in my world, yet your iris will    help us navigate the coming bumps of our route. Today there is a destruction of love’s nature with man’s interference, Causing the rips that stir ships as our Companion    to come with unusual strength. To the laws of the nature of love there is no longer adherence. This world heralds a fallen nature; the tree of love    is felled and causes its disappearance. There are at times in her rips now more violent eruptions— The pangs of Mother Nature brought forth by her destruction. A reaction with unusual anger from her comes feeling the end is near As the cutting down of the tree of love accelerates the pulse    to replace it with hardened stone everywhere. Reacting upon such destruction, her nature is to turn on mankind. The peace of love is becoming harder for everyone to find. The band of nature snaps as the tree that once blanketed the lands Is left mostly alone and naked but for scant individual stands. Yet you stand a witness in your better nature, still pure and unspoiled, Which leads us not to those rocky shores stripped bare and despoiled. And by that hope transcend the rips that tear apart ships in such toil. Like a lighthouse, your love beacons ahead that we    become not beached upon that soil. Because in your iris is the light—a guide to passing ships, That by its direction avoids destruction and helps us navigate the rips. And we do not settle, but continue the journey that    began when I was first pulled by your rope, When the promise of your eyes revealed a higher place    we found while uplifted by that hope. Lovelands There is a new world—not the city on a hill we approach in confidence, But a place yet tangible from a deeper dream that only begins in Providence. Our journey will not end in a land where even the    least of our hopes are not fulfilled. By faith in love we continue, only emboldened our will. We do not settle; there is a dream that carries us still— A deeper dream that does not end with the city on a hill. A peace we keep within us we claim even before we land on that rock, Where we shall see something more, infi nitely pure, when we dock. And those swells will no longer touch us when    we’re upon the rock in our boarders, Yet we shall not be caught dry, for we know it’s    a land fl owing of spring waters. So when that ship lands in port and we’re finally ashore, Our love will not be beached, nor shall a fall endure. In the truth, in wisdom, and in understanding it shall guide us to such lands, Where we shall see all of our hopes and dreams manifest it—Lovelands. A land that will not endure destruction but remain    a perfect nature, bountiful and wild, Nor shall plunder of heart in battle make it impure, marred, or defiled. Yet no matter how far beyond appears our dream, we need not be dismayed, For I found love’s promise that within thine eyes hath made— A promise that we shall fi nd that land beyond which that hope has laid, Because the heart we follow, and we will only    settle when its own nature is staid. So frayed is the place where the dream of the fl esh comes to manifest, But so grand is still Lovelands, where the heart in    its true nature is settled in its chest.            In your companionship, there is a new world we search for            Where the heart, in its perfect nature, we hope to restore.            Where all its dreams shall manifest upon that shore            And contain that perfect love we keep forevermore.            So ourselves in tow to the heart we are bound to explore,            And we search out our dreams for whatever they have in store.            So in each other, full sail we’ve grown to adore,            The heart we set free, so we sail that metaphor. The Fish Story Love upon its ship takes a course of affection, And to a place called Lovelands is its direction. To this old world impossible it may seem, To find a place where we can stand firm—a Plymouth    Rock that sustains and fulfi lls love’s dream. Yet if we are captured by love and to us all it baits, Like fish on a string, we’re uplifted to a new world that awaits. And its ship will take us from the dark and salty ways we used to reflect To a state of hope until it reveals its world seven times as bright and perfect. That is why we search for that place where love is supreme Until the heavens beyond our universe break out    and love on high comes to stream. And from the mountains to the valleys shall pour A stream of love—fresh waters in which we are set free to adore. And it shall reveal all along what I knew to be true of you— That you are a vessel to take us to love’s home we are off to. Yet you’re more than a vessel, and I’m not just another    fish in the sea; this you found to be true As the strings of love lifted us up to that world in view. We become a reflection of that greater world we hold on to As the world of love becomes as real as our own, and as true. And in that light, it reveals you are the vessel that    becomes illuminated—the perfect bride— And I shall be a part of that body of light you are in by your side. We seek to become one in that light in which you appear as a queen    and I appear as a king, and there we shall be crowned When the world of love we inherit as the reward for    holding its truth in our hearts we found. And no more shall we know the cold and dark ways we used to abide. From the rock of love fl ows the spring in which    our love shall forever confide. We are cleansed of the dark things that hide love and ended is the purgatory When we’re set free in the spring that harbors love—    the happy ever after of “The Fish Story.” Click to order Illuminations from Author house if you'd like to continue reading this story.