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A rondeau for Leonard Cohen

Like David’s psalm you named our pain,
And left us. But the songs remain
To search our wounds and bring us balm,
Till every song becomes a psalm,
And your restraint is our refrain;

Between the stained-glass and the stain,
The dark heart and the open vein,
Between the heart-storm and the harm,
Like David’s psalm.

I see you by the windowpane,
Alive within your own domain,
The light is strong, the seas are calm,
You chant again the telling charm,
That names, and naming, heals our pain,
Like David’s psalm.

Ashes

The palms we raised in celebration
burned to ashes,
moistened with oil.
Death’s greasy stain on our foreheads,
not easy to brush off.

              *

When my barber combs the hair
off my forehead, she stiffens,
and talk about the bright day strains
to recover the easy way between us.

              *

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Imposter?

This smudge and smear of ash feels
smooth and soft—the brush of feathers,
angel’s wing—the lightest, slightest touch
to have to bear upon my brow.
With all that lies ahead I had anticipated
something coarser and less comfortable,
the cindered scrape and friction of a burning
that can destroy in its transforming.
These remains of last year’s palms may prove 
too gentle for the testing weeks ahead, too slight
to lead the stumbling way beyond the olive trees,
the ragged hill, the shattered grave, the garden.

Amen

When will I ever learn to say Amen,
Really assent at last to anything?
For now my hesitations always bring
Some reservation in their trail, and then
Each reservation brings new hesitations;
All my intended amens just collapse
In an evasive mumble: well, perhaps,
Let me consider all the implications . . .