Say a prayer for
the cowboy, his mare’s run away
and he’ll walk til
he finds her, his darling, his stray
But the river’s
in flood and the roads are awash
and the bridges
break up in the panic of loss
And there’s nothing
to follow, there’s nowhere to go
She’s gone like
the summer, gone like the snow
And the crickets
are breaking his heart with their song
as the day caves
in and the night is all wrong
Did he dream, was
it she who went galloping past
and bent down the
fern broke open the grass
and printed the
mud with the iron and the gold
that he nailed to
her feet when he was the lord
And although she
goes grazing a minute away
he tracks her all
night he tracks her all day;
oh blind to her
presence except to compare
his injury here
with her punishment there
Then at home on
a branch in the highest tree
a songbird sings
out so suddenly
Oh the sun is warm
and the soft winds ride
on the willow trees
by the river side
And the world is
sweet the world is wide
and she’s there
where the light and the darkness divide
and the steam’s
coming off her, she’s huge and she’s shy
and she steps on
the moon when she paws at the sky
And she comes to
his hand but she’s not really tame
She longs to be
lost he longs for the same
And she’ll bolt
and she’ll plunge through the first open pass
to roll and to feed
in the sweet mountain grass
Or she’ll make a
break for the high plateau
where there’s nothing
above and there’s nothing below
And it’s time for
their burden, it’s time for the whip
Will she walk through
the flame, can he shoot from the hip
So he binds himself
to the galloping mare
and she binds herself
to the rider there
and there is no
space but there’s left and right
and there is no
time but there’s day and night
And he leans on
her neck and he whispers low
Whither thou goest
I will go
And they turn as
one and they head for the plain
no need for the
whip, ah no need for the rein
Now the clasp of
this union, who fastens it tight
who snaps it asunder
the very next night?
Some say the rider,
some say the mare
Or that love’s like
the smoke, beyond all repair
But my darling says,
Leonard, just let it go by,
that old silhouette
on the great Western sky
So I pick out a
tune and they move right along
and they’re gone
like the smoke, and they’re gone like this song
(c) 1979 Leonard Cohen and Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada Company
“Un Canadien Errant” (c) 1842 M. A. Gerin-Lajoie
Courtesy of Menart, an exclusive Sony dealer for Croatia
Reprinted here with written permission
|
