National Poetry Month: Anthem

My Photo - November 2009

After last week's post, I couldn't resist bringing Leonard Cohen back for National Poetry Month. These are the lyrics to Anthem, one of my favorite of his songs. I particularly like the chorus, which celebrates the imperfect, the "crack" that serves to let the light in. 

As in many of his poems and lyrics, Cohen reminds us that the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful live side by side. The lyrics seem to be influenced by Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and of the acceptance that imperfection is part of the human condition. (It's worth noting that Cohen lived for five years at a Zen Buddhist monastery and was ordained a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk in 1996.)

The lyrics alternate between raging at the world and accepting what is. Cohen suggests that logic isn't the answer ("you can add up the parts but you won't have the sum") and that only after we've exhausted the things outside us that we think can save us ("like a refugee") will we experience true love.

Anthem

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.