“A heavy burden lifted from my soul,

           I heard that love was out of my control.”

                                                    Leonard Cohen

I started this day by watching a 1965 film about Leonard Cohen (via OpenCulture). A young Leonard Cohen. In the film, Cohen is portrayed mainly as a poet, as a literary man. So that got me going and I started looking on the web about his poems and his quotes and I bumped into plenty of interesting material.

“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick everyday.”

Leonard Cohen

At some point in the film, at 20mins into it to be exact, Cohen explains how he got to move to Greece, to Hydra. He says he lived in London at the time. It was winter, it was gloomy, rainy, and he had a cold, when he bumped into the Bank of Greece, the title of which was etched in marble on the building facade. He walked in and the man behind the counter was wearing sunglasses. Leonard felt, and I am quoting him, that this was “the most eloquent protest against the entire landscape.” That was the beginning of his affair with Greece.

Here is a page from the Leonard Cohen Files website, an incredible database, with Leonard’s photos & poems from the island of Hydra (click on image to access the link):

Leonard Cohen Poems & Photos from Hydra

“Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore.”

Leonard Cohen

Then, at 26mins into the film, he recites from his poem/song “True Love Leaves No Traces“, where he beautifully says:

                        “As the mist leaves no scar

                         on the dark green hill

                         so my body leaves no scar

                         on you nor ever will

                         When wind and hawk encounter

                         what remains to keep

                         so you and I encounter

                         then turn then fall to sleep”

Leonard Cohen, “True Love Leaves No Traces”

Love and Leonard…. In this realm, it is an all together different song I wanted to share with you here, the ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’:

“When you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.”

Leonard Cohen