Poetry Sunday: Come Healing by Leonard Cohen

I've been listening to the songs of Leonard Cohen. I find his voice and the cadences and rhythms of his music particularly soothing and comforting. Healing even. And my spirit badly needs soothing, comforting, and healing in these tumultuous and angry times.

 There are several of his songs that are especially meaningful to me, but this one seems singularly appropriate this week. And before it was a song, it was a poem and a prayer.

 Come healing of the body, mind, spirit, limb, reason, and heart. We need you.  

Come Healing

by Leonard Cohen

O gather up the brokenness And bring it to me now The fragrance of those promises You never dared to vow The splinters that you carry The cross you left behind Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind And let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb Behold the gates of mercy In arbitrary space And none of us deserving The cruelty or the grace O solitude of longing Where love has been confined Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind O see the darkness yielding That tore the light apart Come healing of the reason Come healing of the heart O troubled dust concealing An undivided love The Heart beneath is teaching To the broken Heart above O let the heavens falter And let the earth proclaim: Come healing of the Altar Come healing of the Name O longing of the branches To lift the little bud O longing of the arteries To purify the blood And let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb O let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb

Comments

  1. Judy KruegerOctober 8, 2017 at 3:53 PM

    Thanks. I needed that too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dorothy BordersOctober 8, 2017 at 5:56 PM

      Leonard's still healing us even though he no longer walks among us.

      Delete
  2. CarmenOctober 9, 2017 at 6:45 AM

    How beautiful and soothing the cadence of the poem is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dorothy BordersOctober 9, 2017 at 9:58 AM

      Exactly. Listening to him perform it is even more soothing.

      Delete

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