Reading Leonard Cohen

I always wanted to buy a good book of poetry for the little one, my little sister.  Spending a few good hours in the afterwork evenings not being a good wife,  walking in my high heels in the bookstores, spent nearly $200 on a stack, reading a few and regret I should have chosen a little carefully, finally found this.

Books of Longing. Randomly, it instantly caught me.

An entire hour of my train then bus journey reading into it, had my earplugs on but completely forgot to turn on the music, lost in it. 

Wikipediaed him, he's as well as a writer, a poet, also wrote Famous Blue Raincoat. Entirely pleased with my effort. I shared the song on facebook, my little one immidiately responded he's not as good as Johnny Cash, then on and on about how depressing his songs.... I don't think she realized or even bothered to research whether he professions outside of singing. Slight discouraged, but, what can you do with them, kids...

Here are some, even depressing, but I like dearly, and I would dearly remember them for life before I sent it forever to Emma:


YOU ARE RIGHT, SAHARA
You are right, Sahara. There are no mists, or veils, or distances. But the mist is surrounded by a mist; and the veil is hidden behind a veil; and the distance continually draws away from the distance. That is why there are no mists, or veils, or distances. That is why it is called The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. It is here that The Traveler becomes The Wanderer, and The Wanderer becomes The One Who Is Lost, and The One Who Is Lost becomes The Seeker, and The Seeker becomes The Passionate Lover, and The Passionate Lover becomes The Beggar, and The Beggar becomes The Wretch, and The Wretch becomes The One Who Must Be Sacrificed, and The One Who Must Be Sacrificed becomes The Resurrected One and The Resurrected One becomes The One Who has Transcended The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Then for a thousand years, or the rest of the afternoon, such a One spins in the Blazing Fire of Changes, embodying all the transformations, one after the other, and then beginning again, and then ending again, 86,000 times a second. Then such a one, if he is a man, is ready to love the woman Sahara; and such a one, if she is a woman, is ready to love the man who can put into song The Great Distance of Mist and Veils. Is it you who are waiting, Sahara, or is it I?

HALF THE WORLD
Every night she'd come to me
I'd cook for her, I'd pour her tea
She was in her thirties then
had made some money, lived with men
We'd lay us down to give and get
beneath the white mosquito net
And since no counting had begun
we lived a thousand years in one
The candles burned, the moon went down
the polished hill, the milky town
transparent, weightless, luminous,
uncovering the two of us
on that fundamental ground,
where love's unwilled, unleashed,unbound
and half the perfect world is found

LOOKING AWAY
you would look at me
and it never occured to me
that you might be choosing the man of your life

you would look at me
over the bottles and the corpses
and I thought
you must be playing with me

you must think I'm crazy enough
to step behind your eyes
into the open elevator shaft

so I looked away
and I waited
until you became a palm tree

or a crow

or the vast grey ocean of wind
or the vast grey ocean of mind



now look at me

married to everyone but you