You Have The Lovers

You have the lovers,
they are nameless, their histories only for each other,
and you have the room, the bed and the windows,
Pretend it is a ritual.
Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,
let them live in that house for a generation or two.
No one dares disturb them.
Visitors tip toe past the long closed door,
they listen for a sound, for a moan, for a song
nothing is heard, not even breathing.
You know they are not dead,
you can feel the presence of their intense love.
Your children grow up, they leave you,
they have become soldiers and riders.
Your mate dies after a life of service.
Who knows you? Who remembers you?
But in your house a ritual is in progress:
it is not finished: it needs more people.
one day the door is opened to the lovers chamber.
The room has become a dence garden,
full of colors, smells, sounds you have never known .
The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,
in the mistt of the garden it stands alone.
In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,
perform the act of love.
Their eyes are closed,
as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay upon them.
Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.
Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.
When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
has given or receieved the kiss.
All the flesh is like a mouth.
He carries his fingers across her waist
and feels his own waist carressed.
She holds him closer and his own ams tighten around her
She kisses the hand beside her mouth
Is it his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,
there are so many more kisses.
You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,
you carefully peel away the bodies.
Your eyes are filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers.
as you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent
because you believe it is the first human voice
heard in that room.
The garments you let fall grow in to vines.
You climb into bed and recover the flesh.
You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.
You create an embrace and fall into it.
There is only one moment of pain or doubt.
as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body.
but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.

--- Leonard Cohen, from The Spice-Box of Earth



Probably my favourite Cohen poem, with the possible exception of "For E.J.P." It's amazing how many times I can look over that poem and still be effected by it. The imagery and cadences are bloody-near perfect-- and that final line is marvellous.