I Stopped To Listen

I stopped to listen, but he did not come. 

I begain again with a sense of loss. 

As this sense deepened I heard him again. 

I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, 

and I allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance. 

This was a strategy, and didn't work at all. 

Much time, years were wasted in such a minor mode. 

I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love. 

I beg for mercy. Slowly he yields. 

Haltingly he moves toward his throne. 

Reluctantly the angels grant to one another permission to sing. 

In a transition so delicate it cannot be marked, 

the court is established on beams of golden symmetry, 

and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, 

born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high, and no higher.

From The Book of Mercy ~ Leonard Cohen