The World, the Job, the War

Dear Kate,

Cohen speaks from the top of his tower of songs, and I listen.  Never does death sound so vital.

When everything else tastes dry and you're now nourished, it's words made flesh you know.  Your flesh, and words too.  And you can grieve finally with the proper vocabulary.

I loved your face, I loved your hair
Your T-shirts and your evening wear
As for the world, the job, the war
I ditched them all to love you more

And now you're gone, now you're gone
As if there ever was a you
Who broke the heart and made it new
Who's moving on? Who's kidding who?

I put the CD in a single-disc player, one of the few luxury items I bought in my teen years with money I still don't know how to spend, and it sounded like one song, one sigh, one last breath, eternally going around a tower, rising and rising, never reaching anywhere, resounding everywhere.  (We used to call such phenomenon an "album," but now the language is dead.)

As for the world, the job, the war
I ditched them all to love you more

I then put the disc in a hand-me-down Hi-Fi upstairs just to hear him say this line again in a different echo chamber.  Then I tried my DVD player.  Then an Xbox my kids don't use anymore.  YouTube.  An iPod.  An old headset that works only half of the time and I don't remember which half.  He spoke the same differently.

If we are given the choice, the freedom, the will, we would all devote our love to love the right things, wouldn't we?

And aren't we?

Yours, Alex