Leonard And I

It’s true. Leonard Cohen and I meet to discuss poetry

It’s true. Leonard Cohen and I meet to discuss poetry

and the state of the world. Very private. No one knows

(apart from you). We'll meet in the Tower of Song

late at night (there are no time zones there). He talks.

I want to be like you,

I speak. He smiles and responds; you know that cannot be so.

I am busy learning what it is like to be me.

To stand up, I listen, try and remember every word.

And articulating your soul is rare in this world. So dark.

Indeed, you must do the same thing, take your own journey,

Face your own demons, fight your own fights; conquer the darkness,

Find your own light. Leonard, I say, I want to be as good as you, so brave.

He looked at me, shook his head, and said “what is it that you crave?”

“Are you letting yourself sink, or going to make waves?

A person noted to be drowning is more likely to be saved.”

“I served my time; my time served me; a definition of liberty?”

His words are spectral, hiding from the light; opaque but luminously bright.

“It begins with your family, soon it comes down to your soul,”

He smiles sadly, “the sisters of mercy are not departed or gone”.

He lets the silence answer. I sit, lost in delight and awe.

I have spoken to Leonard Cohen, and he has spoken to me.

Can I express in words the experience, the silence between words?

The warmth of his smile, the gravity of his words? That such a man

Lived on this fractured planet, and becoming its voice, leads me to ask

If it’s not too late, do we have a chance, a mission, a choice?