you say you are The Lover -
you’re an androcentric entomologist
catching men like insects
examining them,
looking at their souls, their beliefs

as an apprentice bugcatcher
you were happy to catch anything at all
now you are much more selective
quickly discarding the dull and dusty moths,
the preying mantises, the barflys
and the dung beetles

but some are butterflies
and it is these that you delight in
absorbing the beauty
of their souls, their minds
and their bodies
their many-coloured wings
that take you on flights of fancy
and carry you on voyages of desire
to the heights of ecstasy

yet you are not a collector
you don’t want to kill and keep your find
entrapped by a pin and a glass case
where their beauty would lay inert
no, for all the hurt it causes
you let them free
so that they may spread their beauty
for that is love
not antique Latin naming schemes
or sterile, clean white gloves

having accepted their gift of beauty
you let their wings beat again
even though they may fly away

you know that beauty needs freedom
in order to really flourish
and having known that beauty
you know it must be set free
so that it might multiply
and work its magic
turning drabness into vivid colour

this is what makes you beautiful
unlike so many others
who having touched beauty
seek to keep it to themselves,
tethered and sedated
locked away in a museum case
where it becomes grey and jaded

you are the Lover
loving freedom, loving life
loving beauty in others
giving your own love,
you build bonds of nurturing
immersing yourself
in the essence of the whole