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The Dove -- Leonard Cohen

Guest poem sent in by Laurie Edwards
(Poem #1949) The Dove
 I saw the dove come down, the dove with the
 green twig, the childish dove out of the storm and
 flood. It came towards me in the style of the Holy Spirit
 descending. I had been sitting in a cafe for twenty-five
 years waiting for this vision. It hovered over the great
 quarrel. I surrendered to the iron laws of the moral universe which
 make a boredom out of everything desired. Do not surrender,
 said the dove. I have come to make a nest in your shoe. I
 want your step to be light.
-- Leonard Cohen
 From "Death of a Lady's Man" (1978)

I love this poem -- when I first encountered it, it provided some encouragement
to not surrender and allow everything desired to become "a boredom."

I think it's interesting that although Leonard Cohen was a poet before he was a
songwriter, some believe that he has only written song lyrics (cf Poem #624,
Gift).  It's certainly lucky, I think, that he did turn his creativity to
music, so that his gift became more widely known than it might otherwise have
been.

I've also alway wondered about the Catholic icons and images that twine through
his lyrics/poetry (as in The Dove, above), given that Cohen is a Jewish name.
He was born in Montreal in 1934, and is now a committed Buddhist, having been
ordained as a Buddhist monk and given the (ironic?  appropriate?) name Jikan
(Silent One).

Laurie D. Edwards

[Links]

Biography:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen

Official Cohen website:
  http://www.leonardcohen.com/

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