'...follow me the wise man said
but he walked behind...'*
are my father's favourite lines
& the reason why he likes
Leonard Cohen.
I imagine him when the record
first came out, in a dim candle-lit
bricked, late sixties living-room
his lips stained with the blood
of claret, his shadow stretching;
ghost-like, breaking around the
walls, his flamenco voice in unison
with Leonard, lamenting his
relationship with my mother
& the world, that same voice I heard
as a child whispering on the phone
late at night, thinking how much he
left out of those
'this-is-how-it-is-with-your-mother' talks
& wondering how much I'm truly like him-
searching for meaning in
what's not said
& only occasionally getting it right.
He bought me a book of Leonard's
poetry for my eighteenth birthday
and we both agreed genius
is difficult to sustain through decades
even when the critics are devout,
which was the first time we shared
an opinion-
which was a start,
of sorts, and a start merely,
the rest of the time we spent in silence,
listening for meaning
on those long, sunny
Leonard Cohen afternoons
of my upbringing.
*From the Leonard Cohen song:
'Teachers' p. 1968 CBS Records Inc.