Easy Wind and Downy Flake

My mind has forged a link between this Leonard Cohen poem and my feelings about kissing. I suspect it's because for me, this poem captures the inner monologue that swirls through the a lover's mind during a final kiss.

Or maybe not.


This is one of his poems; I don't know if he ever set it to music. Every time I read it a Celtic/modal tune plays in my head. Maybe I'll write it down one day or even record it.

Or maybe not.

This piece always makes me think of the sea in autumn; brine and woodsmoke in my nose. At the same time it reminds me of an Irish landscape, like something from Ryan's Daughter. This poem haunts me because in it I see the faces of some of the men I left and some of the men who left me.


TRAVEL by Leonard Cohen

Loving you, flesh to flesh, I often thought
Of traveling penniless to some mud throne
Where a master might instruct me how to plot
My life away from pain, to love alone
In the bruiseless embrace of stone and lake.

Lost in the fields of your hair I was never lost
Enough to lose a way I had to take;
Breathless beside your body I could not exhaust
The will that forbid me contract, vow,
Or promise, and often while you slept
I looked in awe beyond your beauty.

Now I know why many men have stopped and wept
Halfway between the loves they leave and seek,
And wondered if travel leads them anywhere -
Horizons keep the soft line of your cheek,
The windy sky's a locket for your hair.