Poem 1
I stopped to listen, but he did not come. I begain again with a sense of loss. As this
sense deepened I heard him again. I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, and I
allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance. This was a strategy, and didn't work at
all. Much time, years were wasted in such a minor mode. I bargain now. I offer
buttons for his love. I beg for mercy. Slowly he yields. Haltingly he moves toward his
throne. Reluctantly the angels grant to one another permission to sing. In a transition
so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden
symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to
raise my voice this high, and no higher.
Writer/s: Leonard Cohen