Hieronautics

By Leonard Cohen

i drank a lot. i lost my job. i lived like nothing mattered. then you stopped, and came across my little bridge of fallen answers.

i don’t recall what happened next. i kept you at a distance. but tangled in the knot of sex my punishment was lifted.

and lifted on a single breath— no coming and no going— o G-d, you are the only friend i never thought of knowing.

your remedies beneath my hand your fingers in my hair the kisses on our lips began that ended everywhere.

and now our sins are all confessed our strategies forgiven it’s written that the law must rest before the law is written.

and not because of what i’d lost and not for what i’d mastered you stopped for me, and came across the bridge of fallen answers.

tho’ mercy has no point of view and no one’s here to suffer we cry aloud, as humans do: we cry to one another.

And now it’s one, and now it’s two, And now the whole disaster. We cry for help, as humans do— Before the truth, and after.

And Every Guiding Light Was Gone And Every Teacher Lying— There Was No Truth In Moving On— There Was No Truth In Dying.

And Then The Night Commanded Me To Enter In Her Side— And Be As Adam Was To Eve Before The Great Divide.

her remedies beneath my hand her fingers in my hair— and every mouth of hunger glad— and deeply unaware.

and here i cannot lift a hand to trace the lines of beauty, but lines are traced, and beauty’s glad to come and go so freely.

and from the wall a grazing wind, weightless and routine— it wounds us as i part your lips it wounds us in between.

and every guiding light was gone and every sweet direction— the book of love i read was wrong it had a happy ending.

And Now There Is No Point Of View— And Now There Is No Other— We Spread And Drown As Lilies Do— We Spread And Drown Forever.

You are my tongue, you are my eye, My coming and my going. O G-d, you let your sailor die So he could be the ocean.

And when I’m at my hungriest She takes away my tongue And holds me here where hungers rest Before the world is born.

And fastened here we cannot move We cannot move forever We spread and drown as lilies do— From nowhere to the center.

Escaping through a secret gate I made it to the border And call it luck—or call it fate— I left my house in order.

And now there is no point of view— And now there is no other— We spread and drown as lilies do— We spread and drown forever.