album cover, leonard cohen from 'songs of love and hate', 1971

CHAPTER TWO - Leonard Cohen

WEEK FIVE. conversation by clair and tam

 

5

"Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older, your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder.  You'd been to the station to meet every train, and you came home without Lili Marlene"
lenoard cohen

~ ~ ~

the pain in your eyes is heart aching to bare... I mourn for your blues and your ancient wet clothes that disguise your dignity... and where has your self worth gone my dear friend? your longing, so deep and so wide, reveals the space in your soul unloved by yourself. she's gone and the agony is exquisite to hold. but hold it you must and you will and you will. 
tam


you went a lot of times, taking your body down, rusty at the edge where love might begin, weakened and in the currants which push us away from the source of love. 

if love is powerful then love itself can push someone away...  someone who has not his roots in the ground...  and though you went. she did not arrive. you were there but she arrived both long before and long after.  

so you took your body home and fear itself nurished and grew and grew and rooted ever a little more, your body to its hand.

she's not there and the agony is as strong as the hills are long.  but always, below and above, and even in hell itsself. love will be waiting for you.
clair

so you took your body home

body home

body home

and it hurt and it hurt 

as it will when she is missing...

Is love waiting 

love at home 

love at home?

it's not here, she's not here, and it hurtsithurtsithurts... 

t

mmm...i can feel it. what can i feel?  the hurting or the love?  the hurting for love or the love of the hurting?  we are so emotional.  this is our physical essence.  we are all colourful inside from emotion.  each of them shining like like thunder and lightning and like candles and fire flies, like tiny lady birds in the moon, like whispers in sand dunes.

i love you i really LOVE you.  

i can hear the wind in the trees.

c

 

when i'm among the trees

when i listen

really listen...

when i choose to bring my stillness

my Truth

my lesser wisdom...

there is a chance of finding newness

and some oldness and some more

when i hear the trees

when i let their ancient knowing

filter through my stillness

to a place of deeper hearing

when i am with the trees 

when i be there

truly be there

i can hear them say they'll help us

if we listen 

only listen

is it only trees and plants that supply oxygen? ... if so they are helping more than we care to realise, even without listening

and it seems listening might bring us even closer to truely breathing ...

ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older
or younger, yes younger, more youthful, more playful
can that really happen?
can trees appear younger?
can things that are growing,
while moving so slowly

grow backwards
grow smaller
get younger
less knowing?

i hope not, we need you
oh i see now, it's springtime
when the trees do look younger
all dressed in their newness
their lushness,
their blossom,
their beauty so haunting
there's one in my street
she's called lili marlene

she's called lili marlene.  :)

i went for a 3 and a half hour walk today, down the lanes and across the fields and far away with a hoboe traveller by my side. he showed me things you can eat on the way and we found a tree all stuck by lighting and invisably hollow all the way through.  he said tress were special if they got struck by lightning.

and so youve been again to meet every train in and you so nearly come home with lili marlene.  but something is stopping love lasting and  growing and instead is vanishing like a busy street in a rainstorm.
c

One of my favorite people is in a band. She plays the violin, and sings, it's just lovely to hear. She and her friends play their music sitting perched in trees. I think more people could do that.

Another friend is a shepherd, a forager, an eco-artist, a community builder, a wizard... She made, for her lover, as a Winter Solstice gift, a set of Tree Runes carved from the twigs of twelve different native trees that she had gathered while out walking in the sun and the snow on Christmas Eve. I watched her etch the runes into the wood with the knife she carries to provide for herself with when she goes out for several nights at a time into the woods, to live off what she can find, sheltered only by the earth and the trees.

My lover is learning ancient skills in wood turning, using a lathe that used to live in a museum, but has been set free. It makes her happy and she is beautiful to watch when she's working, almost as beautiful as she is when she's laughing or loving me. She's turning a lace bobbin at the moment. It's a sad thing that she's creating an object that belongs to a craft that is almost lost.

I am a fire maker, and I like to honor the wood that creates the alchemy that nourishes and nurtures me so deeply. When I collect wood from skips, I thank the trees that grew it, and I mourn how easily it is wasted, left to the landfills. One day we will burn every scrap of wood we can lay our hands on to cook and keep warm. Sometimes I pray that I am wrong, that this will not come to pass. I pray that we will find ways to offer our gratitude to the trees. Take care of them. Listen.

tam