A poem for Monday

From you alone to you alone, everlasting to everlasting, all that is not you is suffering, all that is not you is solitude rehearsing the arguments of loss. All that is not you is the man collapsing against his own forehead, and the forehead crushes him. All that is not you goes out and out, gathering the voices of revenge, harvesting lost triumphs far from the real and necessary defeat. It is to you I speak, solitude to unity, failure to mercy, and loss to the light. It is you I welcome here, coming through the coarse glory of my imagination, to this very night, to this very couch, to this very darkness. Grant me a forgiving sleep, and rest my enemy.

-This is from Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy, a collection of personal psalms that are honest and profound. For believers of all stripes, the book speaks from a centerpoint of faith. For non-believers and skeptics, this collection of psalms in modern poetic form can speak eloquently to the power of human expression through art, as the master artist struggles with the ineffable.