The Flame by Leonard Cohen

Author:Leonard Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Leonard and Peter

Peter Dale Scott (b. 1929), a poet and scholar, is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the son of Canadian poet F. R. Scott, who was Cohen’s tutor at McGill University. Scott sent Cohen an inscribed copy of his most recent volume of poems, Walking on Darkness. The subsequent e-mail exchange is recorded here, courtesy of Scott. The final text message is courtesy of Rebecca De Mornay.

Leonard (from “You Want It Darker,” September 21, 2016):

You want it darker / We kill the flame.…

Peter (inscription in Walking on Darkness, October 1, 2016):

If you want it darker

This book is not for you

I have always wanted it lighter

And I think God does too

Leonard (October 3, 2016):

who says “i” want it darker?

who says the “you” is “me”?

god saved you in your harbor

while millions died at sea

you and god are buddies

you know his wishes now

here’s broken Job all bloodied

who met him brow to brow

there is a voice so powerful

so easily unheard

those that hear may hate it all

but follow every word

if you have not been asked

to squat above the dead

be happy that you’re deaf

not something worse instead

he will make it darker

he will make it light

according to his torah

which leonard did not write

Peter (October 4, 2016):

Who says I know God’s wishes?

I’ve not met brow to brow

never had a chance to glimpse him

and never hope to now

But we who were raised in harbors

while others burned from war

have been free to choose which voices

made us what we are.

Leonard (October 4, 2016):

That was great fun.

Be well, dear friends.

Much love,

Eliezer

Leonard (November 6, 2016, 3 p.m., in response to a photo of Peter and Sophia De Mornay-O’Neal):

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

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