May 9-31, 2009
Based on Song of Solomon 5-7

Irritated with her silk robe, Lyric let its long sleeve hang on her arm so her fair shoulders could feel the evening breeze.

“Where is he?” she asked as she paced the palace floor.

Solomon was supposed to be home an hour ago, and although she had so carefully planned this special night for her hard-working husband, she was losing love-interest fast and trying to maintain emotional control.

But she had just bought this top this very afternoon! And the sheer silk hanging over her small breasts cooled her heated skin. She had waited all week for her Love to return from battle, and had longed with anticipation to make love to her warrior and bridegroom after his long week of war. She had felt the excitement building as she thought of his tough body pressed hard against her fragile one. But His tardiness had allowed time for these desires to die down and substituted with agitation. She was growing tired, and even as she slept lightly on the love seat, her heart was fully awake.

Wait! Was that a knock? Had he finally arrived? “Open to me, my sister, my love, my perfect one, my dove.” For a blissful moment, Lyric’s heart sang, followed by a sore reminder of the late hour.
She could hear the drops of evening dew drip from his armor and could only imagine his thick locks drenched with the perspiration of success and passion.
But determined to repay him for coming home so late, Lyric called out from the window with her cute, whiny voice.

“Oh but honey, my robe is already put away and my feet are washed. Must you ask me to soil them by opening the castle moat tonight?”

Ignoring His wife’s ridiculous questions, Solomon put his soaked hand to the latch of the door and her heart beat wildly within her. What was she thinking? Of course she would open the door for him…

Covering her shoulders once more, Lyric rose to open the door to her lover, humbly drenched not with dew but with the myrrh of sacrificial obedience to her master.

But as she opened the thick door, he was… he was gone! Hope sunken and heart failing, Lyric fled the room barefoot, calling madly throughout the castle and even outside the fields. No answer. Apologies rose in the air. Still no answer.

“Oh Solomon,” she whispered helplessly. Wait. The town! Perhaps he had retired to the hotel for the night after her cold response to his beckons and knocks. Stupid bride!

Reaching the city, she approached the gatemen with a request to enter. But why did they look at her funny? Was it her bare feet? Her frizzled hair? Gasp! Her see-through top! In healthy embarrassment, Lyric crossed her arms as she repeated her request. But the watchmen instead hungrily approached her and abused her. Defiled from head to toe, bruised not due to violent lovemaking but impermissible rape, Lyric was given free pass to enter the city with sealed lips and no cloak to cover her molested breasts.

No longer a coy mistress awaiting her lover in the suite, Lyric turned into a wild woman, angry and longing and searching the city for her lover…

“Oh city-daughters! Oh town-dwellers! I adjure you, I implore you, I beg of you. Have you seen my lover? If you find Him, please tell him I am about sick of love! Tell Him to come quickly while I am still sick WITH love for Gim.”

Lyric tripped over a brick in the road and fell over a passerby couple walking tightly together to fight against the wind.

“Oh please,” Lyric pulled on their garments, “Please, have you seen him? My Beloved, my Husband, I am sick for him!”

“What is your Beloved among other husbands, you beautiful, wild, hungry woman? What has he more than others that you bother us with your adjurations?”

Shocked at such a question, as if they did not KNOW Sir Solomon, Lyric explained his identity. “My Beloved is radiant. He is as ruddy as a summer horse ride.” SHE was at the moment as ruddy as a horse ride—even starting to wonder why she didn’t send her manservant to search for Him. But this thought fled quickly as she knew ONLY SHE had the passion to search with such length.

From head to toe she described every feature and trait that she had grown to love and loved to experience. From his black and white hair of youthful vibrancy and ancient wisdom to his eyes that gazed longingly with the commitment and focus of a dove who had chosen his life partner; from his lips previously dripping with dew that were touched with the scent of healing lilies and of painful myrrh to his ivory body and golden glazed legs; from the firmness of his Lebanese appearance to the sweet taste of his delicate mouth. “This, dormant passersby, is my Beloved and firstly will always be my Friend. Oh inquisitive couple of the city, I am my Solomon’s and he is mine.”

Completely in awe by such brazen descriptions, the dazzled couple asked yet another unnecessary question. “Well…” the man stammered and quickly self-composed. “Where IS this … this so-called Beloved of yours, o hungry woman? Where has He AWOL-ed that we have to seek Him with you?”

Annoyed with such questions, Lyric quickly reminded herself of the ignorance of dead lovers. She recalled the last place Solomon’s heart would ever be if not at war or with her. Not at the bars, not out jousting, but out tending… She smiled. “My Beloved Solomon is down in his garden. In the marriage bed of spices, he is grazing in the gardens to tend his sheep and to gather the lilies. I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine. His heart grazes among the very lilies of true healing and aptly gentle words.

“At that very moment, Lyric all of the sudden felt her heart pound wildly within her. Gasping for breath, she knew. She knew he was close. Her voice box itched to sing! “You, my dove, only you are as beautiful as Tirzah!”

Could it be? Could it finally be that he had risen to awaken her heart and rescue her soul? Was he finally here? Turning to gaze upon him, Lyric’s longing eyes pierced his tired ones. He completely melted at the sight of her.

“Turn your eyes away from me,” he said as he put his strong hand over his eyes of doves. “Turn, for they OVERWHELM me!” And just as she had described his every persona, he began himself to sing over her lyrics of love so fresh and so on fire. Even to the point of describing her teeth as flocks of ewes, coming up from being washed, Solomon sang of being washed by the water of his words. He commented on the many women he had seen and known but, “You, my dove, my perfect one, are the only one purely perfect for me, the only wife good to me all the days of my life. Before I knew you, you were good to me; you were praised in the streets, blessed by all. You look as bright as the dawn, as beautiful as the moon, as awesome as an army of banners. Oh beloved Lyric! I’ve been waiting. I went down to our garden, and examined the orchard of our blossoming heart to look at the flowers of the valley. To see whether the vines have budded, whether the orchids were in bloom. And before I knew it, the lyric of my lifesong, my desire set me among the chariots of fire filled with desire and consummation. And then I knew, dear. Only then did I know that you were ready. You were hungry enough for me. And only THEN could I return that I may look upon you, that I may watch you dance by firelight in the Garden State and tell you stores of my goings away and my sleepless, hungry nights for you.

Oh Babe. You. Your feet are. They’re beautiful with goodness and prepared nobility. Everything about you! Your flowing locks are like purple royalty and they dance with worshipful warfare. Your King, he is captured, captivated, locked up in your heart by such tresses. I am Yours, Beloved, and My desire is for you.”

Yes, finally. The two vibrant and holy love doves went out into the fields; they lodged in the village and went out early into the vineyards to see whether love had finally budded. Of course. Love had been awakened. And of course it was time. All former sin, all past hurts of molestation and shame were washed over with the reality of love. There, dear reader, there real love was given. And there all that had been stored for the perfect moment had finally been poured out.