closing time. a farewell to leonard cohen

Last updated on: November 11, 2016 at 1:12 am by Rebecca Bratten Weiss

closing time. a farewell to leonard cohen 2016-11-11T01:12:39-04:00 Rebecca Bratten Weiss

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Leonard Cohen died today, at the age of 82. He was ready to go, as he sang in his final album. But we’re less ready to let him go: we lack that grace, yet. At any rate, I do.

We have lost the poet whom we most needed, the poet of darkness, for every November when the earth tilts us away from the sun, and we prepare to face the shadows we’d left in the cold-freeze of winter – the poet we needed especially this November, as we gaze out on an unruly world, wondering whether in the end we’re all destined to be ruled be fools and liars. Within the repeated cycle of history’s violence, it is the troubadors, the poets and the wandering singers, who remind us that we are fools and liars too.

…Ah we’re lonely, we’re romantic
and the cider’s laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit’s crying, “Where’s the beef?”
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime
and I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can’t say much has happened since
but closing time…

It’s said often that we live in a time of fragmentation – that modernity itself, from Descartes and Bacon onwards, has been in a state of constant fragmentation. I think it’s not just modernity; it’s the nature of things. As another poet wrote: things fall apart. We need our poets to put them together again. Leonard Cohen put together sex and remorse, religion and rebellion, ecstasy and rage, connecting the broken pieces so we get this brief glimpse of something whole, a way that things make sense. And he did it without evading the physical. It wasn’t some ethereal “spousal embrace” he wrote about, it was sex, the raw thing. It wasn’t a refined bourgeois religion, but the bitter joyful touch of the finger of a creator from behind a curtain of night.

Like many, I discovered Cohen’s music via his most well-known song, “Hallelujah.” I had a bad cover of it by a local artist, on the jukebox at the bar I owned. In the afternoons, cleaning up the vomit and the cigarette butts, hiding the coke baggies, looking ruefully at the box of chicken wings that had been left out to rot, I played it over and over. Even without his extraordinary voice, even with the bad cover, the lyrics couldn’t lose their power. Cohen sang to me about how to put together the painful infinitude of desire, the praise of the Lord, the longing for that “secret chord.”

…I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch,
And love is not a victory march,
It’s a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah…

If one could find the secret chord, perhaps one could get the attention of the Lord, I think, sometimes. But here I am, challenging him with pistols and rapiers. Will he show up to meet the challenge?

…Well, maybe there is a God above,
But all that I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you…

If what we’ve been told is true, we find God in the darkness, and in beauty also. Cohen gave us both of those, because beauty and darkness need one another. And he gave us a way to hear the things said, that we didn’t know how to say:

The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it’s done –
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it’s real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Cohen’s life was full, fascinating. His art was momentous. Always will be. One can not think of “defeat” in light of his grace and genius, but his work remains to speak to us of the something invincible, amidst the inevitable defeat we all face, no matter how high we rise or low we fall.

And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Just last month I attended the funeral of another Jewish man, my grandfather, a World War II vet who fought the Nazis and almost never talked about it. “War is stupid,” he told my brother, in their final conversation. In our Jewish history there is so much sorrow we bear along. Easy platitudes and “God has a plan” is paltry religion, against the heavy weight of the things we have survived. The religion Cohen showed us, so deeply connected with the pain and joy of earthly life, a spiritual passion tethered true to the bodies which we are, is more real, like the religion we find in the Book of Job: it’s something that God shows up. And God wants it darker, it would seem.

Previous Post

November 11, 2016

are you affiliated with an organization that helps women and families directly? the new pro life movement would like to promote it

Next Post

November 11, 2016 at a time of upheaval, violence is not the answer - but neither is authoritarian unity

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion anti-semitism art Atwood Betrothed church clergy abuse coronavirus culture economics education environmentalism ethics faith family feminism gardening gun violence immigration Judaism literature MaddAddam New Pro Life Movement news pandemic personalism poem politics politics blue Pope Francis racism religion salvation sexuality social justice spirituality Station eleven Stephen King The Stand Trump Uncategorized war World Health Organization

Select a Month March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who wrote the majority of the Psalms?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Asaph Solomon David Moses

Support this
Column