English, World, Canada, Leonard Cohen, Poetry, Languages

Love Itself by Leonard Cohen

By T.

5 March 2011

4.25k

Love Itself
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.

MARGINALIA

I finally did it. I wrote a letter. After days, nights, of thinking and trying to find the right words. That was folly. There were never the right words. Only those that will hurt, in the end.

ABOUT LEONARD COHEN

Leonard Cohen’s artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies. He published two novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, and ten books of poetry, most recently Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs and Book of Longing. During a recording career that spanned almost fifty years, he released fourteen studio albums, the last of which, You Want It Darker, was released in 2016. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and

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