Happy 78th Birthday, Leonard Cohen

Buddhism in Canada Meditation Montreal Music Zen

Posted on Parabola Magazine’s FB page, picked up by Sweeping Zen, and now reflected here. (But who of them can add the trivial fact, like I can, that I used to play in Murray Park behind Leonard’s boyhood home in Westmount, or that our mothers sometimes had tea together? Ho!)

Love Itself
by Leonard Cohen

The light came through the window now
straight from the sun above,
and so inside my little room
there plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw
the dust you seldom see,
the dust the Nameless makes to speak
a Name for one like me.

And all mixed up with sunlight now
the flecks did float and dance
and I was tumbled up with them
in formless circumstance.

I’ll try to say a little more:
this Love went on and on
until it reached an open door –
Then Love itself was gone.

The self-same moment words were seen
from every window frame,
but there was nothing left between
the Nameless and the Name.

—Leonard Cohen, born yesterday, September 21st, 1934

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