“The sadness of the zoo will fall upon society.” (L. Cohen)

Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016. Photographe : Redfurns

Un texte du visionnaire Leonard Cohen, extrait de Book of Longing (version française, Livre du constant désir, Éditions de l'Hexagone, 2007; trad. Michel Garneau). En regard de la situation actuelle aux États-Unis, c'était en effet une prophétie! 

Posted on February 7, 2017 by DrHGuy:  
Note: The following post was published here March 17, 2016, following an email I revived from Leonard Cohen alerting me to this item. Because the email contained a technical abnormality, I wrote back to assure it was actually from him. He confirmed he had sent it and added, “I thought it was an interesting item. Nobody ever quoted from that poem before.” Given the current situation in America, reposting this entry seems appropriate.

The pertinent excerpt is from What happens after Trump? by Bernie Quigley (The Hill, March 15, 2016):
What Trump portends is yet beyond our seeing. Maybe it is harbinger to that time poet Leonard Cohen prophesied in Book of Longing: “The public yearning for Order will invite many stubborn uncompromising persons to impose it. The sadness of the zoo will fall upon society.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/273025-what-happens-after-trump

Leonard Cohen Album Logos: The Imperfect Hummingbird, Heart, & Handcuffs
Print in Book Of Longing (Posted on May 17, 2015  by DrHGuy)

The poem referenced is “Moving Into A Period” from Book of Longing (2006) by Leonard Cohen:

We are moving into a period of bewilderment, a curious moment in which people find light in the midst of despair, and vertigo at the summit of their hopes. It is a religious moment also, and here is the danger. People will want to obey the voice of Authority, and many strange constructs of just what Authority is will arise in every mind. The family will appear again as the Foundation, much honoured, much praised, but those of us who have been pierced by other possibilities, we will merely go through the motions, albeit the motions of love. The public yearning for Order will invite many stubborn uncompromising persons to impose it. The sadness of the zoo will fall upon society.

You and I, who yearn for blameless intimacy, we will be unwilling to speak even the first words of inquisitive delight, for fear of reprisals. Everything desperate will live behind a joke. But I swear that I will stand within the range of your perfume.

How severe seems the moon tonight, like the face of an Iron Maiden, instead of the usual indistinct idiot.

If you think Freud is dishonoured now, and Einstein, and Hemingway, just wait and see what is to be done with all that white hair, by those who come after me.

But there will be a Cross, a sign, that some will understand; a secret meeting, a warning, a Jerusalem hidden in Jerusalem. I will be wearing white clothes, as usual, and I will enter The Innermost Place as I have done generation upon generation, to entreat, to plead, to justify. I will enter the chamber of the Bride and Bridegroom, and no one will follow me.

Have no doubt, in the near future we will be seeing and hearing much more of this sort of thing from people like myself.

~~~

DrHGuy Note: The poem is indeed rarely quoted. A search this morning turned up only one other quotation from “Moving Into A Period” (other than in articles about Leonard Cohen such as reviews of Book Of Longing and a 2014 Words By Leonard Cohen DrHGuy.com post): editorial – rt82 (RealTime Arts Magazine #82: Dec-Jan 2007)

http://cohencentric.com/2017/02/07/sadness-zoo-will-fall-upon-society-leonard-cohen-poem-quoted-march-15-2016-article-happens-trump/