Dedicated to A. M. Klein (1909-1972)
Hurt once and for all into silence.
A long pain ending without a song to prove it.
Who could stand beside you so close to Eden,
When you glinted in every eye the held-high
razor, shivering every ram and son?
And now the silent loony bin, where
The shadows live in the rafters like
Day-weary bats,
Until the turning mind, a radar signal,
lures them to exaggerate
Mountain-size on the white stone wall
Your tiny limp.
How can I leave you in such a house?
Are there no more saints and wizards
to praise their ways with pupils,
No more evil to stun with the slap
of a wet red tongue?
Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror
and rest because he had finally come?
Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.
I have entered under this dark roof
As fearlessly as an honoured son
Enters his father’s house.
Included on Dear Heather (2004), the words of this song were originally included in Cohen’s anthology The Spice-Box Of The Earth. Abraham Moses Klein was a Canadian writer, best known as a poet and cited by Cohen as an influence. He was a significant figure on the Montreal literary scene from the Thirties onwards, and an important member of the Montreal Jewish community. After 1956, he gave up writing and became a recluse, the “silence” referred to in the song’s opening words.