Curing

From the looks of things, I’m a little late for Leonard’s 75th. But, however late respect comes along, it is still respect.

I wrote this several years ago, abandoned it, but always begrudged just leaving it.

Cookies and kudos to anyone that can recognize which song to ‘sing this over’.

by Andrew Gilchrist

So I knelt there at the delta,
at the alpha and the omega,
I knelt there like one who believes
– Leonard Cohen, Light as a Breeze

I can’t pretend I’m not.
– Leonard Cohen, Ain’t No Cure For Love

I’m tired of the discipline
So I go see if the doctor’s in
I’m lying with another prayer
The doctor asks how I’ve been
I breathe and try to imitate the wind
And then look up blushing through my hair

I lay there on the table
Until the nurse asks if I’m able
To please turn and cough, if I’d care
And it all felt like some fable
I could forget the doctor, Clark Gable
And come kneeling with another prayer

O blessing in waiting
Lie and wait in this chair
For something from heaven
Or something right here.

But she found in me another ache
I couldn’t tell what was at stake
The old doctor books are locked under the stair
How might I fix a broken spine?
I’ve spilt too much to respect your wine
Or shoot the breeze with theologies that seem fair?

Pretending sick I return
Bending over from a burn
I come kneeling for another prayer
The doctor sends me to the river
There’s a lesson there he says to consider
If I find it please come back and share

I find the nurse beside the water
There’s a lesson there nature’s taught her
And she laughs at  my windswept hair
She smooths it down with her brush
To her it really isn’t much
A revelation makes me stop and stare

O blessing in waiting
Lie and wait in this chair
For something from heaven
Or something right here.

Wine and dance might make me bitter
But it’ll keep me warm this winter
And to think that I thought myself a player
My senses put down this crutch
The pilgrim doesn’t need to rush
Just be prepared to be bound in prayer

So many doctors now on the transit
I want to pay them  a call, a visit
They ask, “Blood and soul, how goes the career?”
The therapy seems to do the trick
So give it time, just wait a bit
And I’ll come kneeling with another prayer

the doctors are working day and night,
– Leonard Cohen, Ain’t No Cure For Love

And like a blessing come from heaven
For something like a second
I was cured and my heart
was at ease.
– Leonard Cohen, Light As A Breeze

All the love.

All the blessings.

(I’m totally going to send this to Victoria. I can just imagine what she is going to think, with my L.C. adoration….)

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