KEEPING NOWS FOR THEN

[RonPrice]

To apply to the source of mercy....I found that the art of writing was the proper form for my prayers. -Leonard Cohen, Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen, Ira B. Nadel, Bloomsbury Pub. Co Inc., London, 1991(?), p.237.

Anything done in the spirit of service is prayer,
but their special verses kindle one’s very soul
with sweet melodies and, I am told, attract the
hearts of all men, while the scattering angels of
the Almighty scatter the fragrances of the words
and cause the hearts of righteous men to throb.
The virtue of the grace, in time, influences my
own soul—such is the mystery of Revelation.
Such is the nature of the mystic. Such is some
of the context of prayer: enthralling Leonard,
don’t you think? For their poems tie down an
instant and relive it forever, separated from
fixed time: somehow it keeps nows for then.
My life seems partly in the hands of their1 poetry.2

Ron Price
31 January 1998

1 the prayers of the three Central Figures of the Baha’i Faith
2 I was so pleased to see Leonard Cohen on TV recently--free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, he was free at last.