Book of Longing Read online

  Wind Moves, The 170

  Wish Me Luck 67

  Work in Progress 154

  worried of course. 200

  You Are Right, Sahara 44

  you don’t want to go out any more 135

  You Have Loved Enough 55

  You’d Sing Too 6

  Your Heart 168

  Your Relentless Appetite for New Perspectives 219

  Acknowledgments

  Many of these poems and drawings first appeared in The Leonard Cohen Files (www.leonardcohenfiles.com), a remarkable website out of Finland mastered by Jarkko Arjatsalo, with the technical assistance of his son Rauli. I am deeply grateful to the Arjatsalo family, and to the webmasters Marie Mazur, Tomislav Sakic, and Patrice Clos for their extraordinary efforts on behalf of my work.

  Some of the pieces in this book became lyrics for songs that Sharon Robinson and I wrote and sang together. They can be heard on the Sony CD called Ten New Songs.

  The Walrus magazine, out of Toronto, graciously published some poems and drawings, as did Oris, out of Zagreb, with Croatian translations.

  I heard many interesting and precise ideas, which later I blurred into verse, while in the precious company of Kyozan Joshu Roshi, and Ramesh S. Balsekar. Their compelling concepts were so imperfectly grasped that I cannot be accused either of stealing or absorbing them.

  I thank my editors in Toronto and New York, Ellen Seligman and Dan Halpern, for the wide hospitality of their houses, and Marilyn Biderman of M&S for carefully presenting this book to publishers elsewhere.

  I thank Sam Feldman, Steve Macklam and Michelle Findlay for helping me across the street.

  I thank Adam and Lorca Cohen and Jessica Murphy for their Sabbath company.

  I thank my sister Esther Cohen for her exuberant support.

  I want to express my gratitude to Robert Kory, Michelle Rice, and Anjani Thomas for their loyalty and their kind and skilful navigations.

  And to Anjani, again.

  Thank you, Teachers

  Thank you, Everyone