Where the Song Comes From

If I knew where the song came from, I’d go there more often.”

— Leonard Cohen

Somewhere in the time and timelessness of it all, I came upon the above quote from a speech by Leonard Cohen. He was talking about his guitar — how it was formed of wood that still carries the eternal scent of the tree, born of its own soil, strung by a luthier grounded in the same earth. It’s an earth so bountiful that even a handful of dirt or a cup of seawater holds a universe of tiny, unseen, living beings who share our origins.

I feel Cohen’s words in my urban life  … how Hugh and I find impressions of ginkgo leaves in a city sidewalk … or how a coyote will slink into a clearing for just a moment, fixed on us with the piercing gaze of the ancients. I love that paw and claw prints in the snow, sand, or mud carry a history and future all in one, marking the past but still leading the way.

They step so lightly on this planet, in sync with the sun, the stars, and the magnetism. And in those encounters, I’m reminded to feel rhythms of life as other species follow them

I don’t know where the song comes from, as Cohen said. It’s just there, when it chooses to be, in that cyclone of raw creativity. I do sometimes worry that the words, the birds, the songs, and the poets will one day be overcome by our noise, or worse, go silent, like Rachel Carson’s spring. But for now, they are still here, coming in from the storm and coloring life with all of its richness, meaning, and promise, especially when hope feels dim.