Leonard, the cow, the spoon and the mist of some sweet afternoon

For some reason, after many, many years I read this nursery rhyme again this morning:

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped
over the moon;

The little dog laughed

to see such fun,

And the dish ran

away with the spoon.

Now what in the name of love...?

Anyway, it made me think of Leonard Cohen’s Take this Waltz based on a poem by Frederico Carcia Lorca.

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women

There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz

Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you

On a chair with a dead magazine

In the cave at the tip of the lily

In some hallways where love's never been

On a bed where the moon has been sweating

In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz

Take its broken waist in your hand

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz

With its very own breath of brandy and Death

Dragging its tail in the sea

There's a concert hall in Vienna

Where your mouth had a thousand reviews

There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking

They've been sentenced to death by the blues

Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture

With a garland of freshly cut tears?

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz

Take this waltz it's been dying for years

There's an attic where children are playing

Where I've got to lie down with you soon

In a dream of Hungarian lanterns

In the mist of some sweet afternoon

And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow

All your sheep and your lilies of snow

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz

With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz ...

And I'll dance with you in Vienna

I'll be wearing a river's disguise

The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,

My mouth on the dew of your thighs

And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,

With the photographs there, and the moss

And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty

My cheap violin and my cross

And you'll carry me down on your dancing

To the pools that you lift on your wrist

Oh my love, Oh my love

Take this waltz, take this waltz

It's yours now. It's all that there is

Oh, I love these images.

I don’t know what it means exactly. Today, amidst the disarray of packing and boxes and sorting out, I do not want to Google it. I want to float where it’s fine if the cow jumps over the moon and the dish runs away with the spoon. Leonard will be singing. Today, I’ll take his waltz.

That’s all. Thank you.


George