You Who Wish to Conquer Pain

I offer you here a moment’s respite from a world full of pompous bloviators. I offer you here the balm of humility, the elixir of not knowing. 

 

Leonard Cohen: You mean, why, why do the people come to see me?
German interviewer: Well, why are they so fascinated?
L.C: ……………………….I don’t know.
Interviewer: Is it because they understand, you think?
L.C: I mean, there are, you know, I, I, if you just stand on a corner there, and hold up a stick with a curious sign on it, you’re likely to get a number of people to stare at you. Ah, the fact that people come to look at you is not necessarily any indication that something excellent is going on. Ah, you know, I, I, I have set myself up as–perhaps they just come to see me make a fool of myself–I, I am making a spectacle of myself. I am holding up some kind of curious little sign, and a number of people are coming to look at it. Um, they come for their different reasons. I myself try to make that as empty as possible.

Some empty. (Brace yourself…and beware!)

Avalanche
Leonard Cohen

I stepped into an avalanche,
It covered up my soul;
When I am not this hunchback that you see,
I sleep beneath the golden hill.
You who wish to conquer pain,
You must learn to serve me well.

You strike my side by accident
As you go down for your gold.
The cripple here that you clothe and feed
Is neither starved nor cold;
He does not ask for your company,
Not at the center of the world.

When I am on this pedestal,
You did not raise me there.
Your laws do not compel me
To kneel grotesque and bare.
I myself am the pedestal for this ugly hump
at which you stare, and stare, and stare.

You who wish to conquer pain,
You must learn what makes me kind;
The crumbs of love that you offer me,
They’re the crumbs I’ve left behind.
Your pain is no credential here,
just the shadow of my wound.

I have begun to long for you,
I who have no greed;
I have begun to wait for you,
I who have no need.
You say you’ve gone away from me,
But I can feel you when you breathe.

Do not dress in those rags for me,
I know you’re not poor;
You don’t love me quite so fiercely now
When you know that you are not sure,
This is your world, beloved,
It is your flesh that I wear.

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