Anthem by Leonard Cohen: Words of Wisdom

I've been dealing with a nasty relapse of my pain condition so I've been looking for commiseration and inspiration.

I had dinner with friends the other night, and the background music switched to a Leonard Cohen song: Anthem. It is impossible to ignore his coarse, earthy voice, and we all stopped chatting to listen. What we heard in the chorus of this song was a combination of prayer, blessing, mantra, forgiveness, commandment, and lament.

"Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything;
That's how the light gets in.
Ring ring the bell. Ring the bell."

Valentine's Day Wish For You

My valentine to all you couples who are living with illness. May you find respite in each other.

from The Garden of Love
by William Blake

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.

A Love Sonnet for a Rainy Day

It's gray and raining. I'm worried about my father's health, my mother's ability to cope, the people who live in the path of a hurricane, and the wreckage of the American political process. So here's one of my favorite love poems by Shakespeare.

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.