ANTHEM by Leonard Cohen
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 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 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
They're gonna hear from me.
Ring ring ring ring ring
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
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.
I’ve been looking for light for days. Actually since the day Trump won the election, and the Liberty Bell seemed to have split completely. Leonard Cohen died the day after the beast was elected. And then “mere anarchy,” manifested in the anti-goverrnment governance, and was “loosed upon the world.” As the beast slouched toward D.C., it occupied the highest office in the country, it disassembled the intentions of agencies created for the public welfare. Health, Education, Human Services, Safety, Scientific Research.
It altered policies for a just democracy, while it severed world alliances. I kept thinking about R.E.M.’s song line: “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” But I don’t feel fine.
The followers of the beast, along with the willing members of its Party, enabled Climate change resulting in fire and ice. Now there are the highest temperatures ever measured in our country, along with the rest of the world. There are now massive hurricanes and tornado events, massive floods, droughts,and the worst fires ever known on the entire West Coast, while glaciers fracture and float into our oceans. Neither fire nor ice would be nice.
Amid the 100-plus days of marches to protest and demand justice, I think of “I too am America” and long for that truth to be self-evident.
Families have been torn asunder by policies that include children in cages, women subjected to assaults on their bodies in the form of unecessesary medical procedures, evoking the Nazi medical experiments on prisoners, deportations and a border wall. There’s more I.C.E! “Something there is that does not love a wall.”
As the numbers of illnesses caused by Covid take more and more lives, we are split and divided. We can’t hug and hold loved ones, or visit those in care situations. The beast has fostered disagreements about using masks to protect ourselves with committment to the greater good, and is now encouraging the spread of the pandemic for “herd immunity.” The beast is willing to risk millions more deaths. Huge gaps of facts and alternate facts have created a massive rift.
“This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends. not with a bang, but a whimper.”
Tents line our sidewalks, streets, and parking lots, “homes” to those without shelters, and now masks are needed so they can breathe. “Gimme Shelter.” a rock concert turned ugly.
Millions of people around the world are demonstrating for freedom; millions are fighting oppression.
In my memory and in photos, I see Lady Liberty, arm raised holding the light high. “Give me your tired, your poor....” Millions of our people care; offer help, demonstrate, work for betterment. We had a President admonishing us to hang on to Hope. We the People, who want to free the Dove, and say “yes we can” will still strive to peer through the fractures and cracks. We seek the light of the intentions and aspirations of a “more perfect union.” We can find the places the light gets in, and create more light. We who love and are able, can do more than survive. We can shine the light and transcend.
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With appreciation to Leonard Cohen, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Langston Hughes,T.S. Elliot, Emma Lazarus, and Thomas Jefferson
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