Book of Mercy (4 page)

I
T IS TO YOU I TURN. THE
table stands on tiptoe. Every object leaps to its place. The closed book rises on its thousand pages and my wakefulness rejoices. I turn to you, my song in the house of night, my shield against the quarrels. I turn to you, who unifies the upward heart. Your name is the foundation of the night. The Accuser, with his thousand voices, stands in the place you are not named. Blessed is the name that holds this house in the firmness of mercy, and binds this song to the rock.

H
OLY IS YOUR NAME, HOLY
is your work, holy are the days that return to you. Holy are the years that you uncover. Holy are the hands that are raised to you, and the weeping that is wept to you. Holy is the fire between your will and ours, in which we are refined. Holy is that which is unredeemed, covered with your patience. Holy are the souls lost in your unnaming. Holy, and shining with a great light, is every living thing, established in this world and covered with time, until your name is praised forever.

T
HE MEDITATIONS OF THE
great are above me, and the entwining of the letters is beyond my skill. I cannot climb down to the vehicles of holiness, and my dreams do not ascend. But you have taught the heart to search itself in simple ways, with broom and rag, and you do not abandon my heart to the dust. I come to you for mercy and you hear my cry, and you shelter me in my portion, and you make my deeds a warning. Blessed are you who hears the cry of each man’s portion. You cast me away to draw me
back, you darken every expectation which is not you. You have taught me with a voice, you have rebuked me with a cheap reward. I cry from my defeat and you straighten my thought. It is your name that makes the cry a healing, it is your mercy that guards the heart in the panic of yes and no. Let the heart speak to its friend, you who decipher the world to a child. Let the heart speak of the love that humbles it for wilder love, and let my whispered gratitude uphold me through this day. In the hopelessness of every other thing, you make your place, you strengthen your presence, and I ask to bow down before the lord of my life.

N
OT KNOWING WHERE TO
go, I go to you. Not knowing where to turn, I turn to you. Not knowing how to speak, I speak to you. Not knowing what to hold, I bind myself to you. Having lost my way, I make my way to you. Having soiled my heart, I lift my heart to you. Having wasted my days, I bring the heap to you. The great highway covered with debris, I travel on a hair to you. The wall smeared with filth, I go through a pinhole of light. Blocked by every thought, I fly on the wisp of a remembrance. Defeated
by silence, here is a place where the silence is more subtle. And here is the opening in defeat. And here is the clasp of the will. And here is the fear of you. And here is the fastening of mercy. Blessed are you, in this man’s moment. Blessed are you, whose presence illuminates outrageous evil. Blessed are you who brings chains out of the darkness. Blessed are you, who waits in the world. Blessed are you, whose name is in the world.

H
ELP ME IN THE RAIN
, help me in the darkness, help me at my aimless table. Bend me down to the rain, and let the darkness speak to my heart. Blessed are you who speaks from the darkness, who gives a form to desolation. You draw back the heart that is spilled in the world, you establish the borders of pain. Your mercy you make known to those who know your name, and your healing is discovered beneath the lifted cry. The ruins signal your power; by your hand it is broken down, and all things crack that your throne be restored to the heart. You have written your name on the chaos. The eyes that roll down the darkness, you have rolled them back to the skull. Let each man be sheltered in the fortress of your name, and let each one see the other from the towers of your law. Create the world again, and stand us up, as you did before, on the foundation of your light.

M
Y SOUL FINDS ITS PLACE
in the Name, and my soul finds its ease in the embrace of the Name. I struggled with shapes and with numbers, and I carved with blade and brain to make a place, but I could not find a shelter for my soul. Blessed is the Name which is the safety of the soul, the spine and the shield of the innermost man, and the health of the innermost breath. I search the words that attend your mercy. You lift me out of destruction, and you win me my soul. You gather it out of the unreal by the power of your name. Blessed is the Name that unifies demand, and changes the seeking into praise. Out of the panic, out of the useless plan, I awaken to your name, and solitude to solitude all your creatures speak, and through the inaccessible intention all things fall gracefully. Blessed in the shelter of my soul, blessed is the form of mercy, blessed is the Name.

A
WAKEN ME, LORD, FROM
the dream of despair, and let me describe my sin. I would not fall into the bewilderment to which your name invited me. I established a court, and I fell asleep under a crown, and I dreamed I could rule the wicked. Awaken me to the homeland of my heart where you are worshipped forever. Awaken me to the mercy of the breath which you breathe into me. Remove your creature’s self-created world, and dwell in the days that
are left to me. Dissolve the lonely dream which is the judgement on my ignorance, and sweep aside the work of my hands, the barricades of uncleanliness, which I commanded against the torrents of mercy. Let your wisdom fill my solitude, and from the ruin raise your understanding. Blessed is the name of the glory of your kingdom forever and ever. What I have not said, give me the courage to say. What I have not done, give me the will to do. It is you, and you alone who refines the heart, you alone who instructs mortals, who answers the trembling before you with wisdom. Blessed is the name of the one who keeps faith with those who sleep in the dust, who has saved me again and again. To you is the day, and the conscious night, to you alone the only consecration. Bind me, intimate, bind me to your wakefulness.

A
LL MY LIFE IS BROKEN
unto you, and all my glory soiled unto you. Do not let the spark of my soul go out in the even sadness. Let me raise the brokenness to you, to the world where the breaking is for love. Do not let the words be mine, but change them into truth. With these lips instruct my heart, and let fall into the world what is broken in the world. Lift me up to the wrestling of faith. Do not leave me where the sparks go out, and the jokes are told in the dark, and new things are called forth and appraised in the scale of the terror. Face me to the rays of love, O source of light, or face me to the majesty of your darkness, but not here, do not leave me here, where death is forgotten, and the new thing grins.

I
LOST MY WAY, I FORGOT
to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world, and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here. The world is all forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in the traveller’s heart for his turning.

L
EONARD
C
OHEN
was born in Montreal in 1934. His artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of
Let Us Compare Mythologies.
Since then, he has published twelve books, including two novels,
The Favourite Game
(1963) and
Beautiful Losers
(1966), and, most recently,
Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs
(1993) and
Book of Longing
(2006). He has made eighteen albums, the latest being
Dear Heather
(2004) and
Live in London
(2009). Numerous tribute albums, in many languages, have celebrated his songs. His work is known and loved throughout the world.