Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

Like Blessing Rain

To Leonard Cohen

I have watched your “A-thousand-kisses-deep” video so many times now since I learned that you are gone. I wish I could write at least a tenth of what you write, and how you write it, have a perfect physique and the vim that resides in you. I wish I could knit those impressive metaphors. I am pained now because you are no longer among us—but you continue to be the light that doesn’t need to die. We are standing in the rain and sleet, your followers, watching the snowman conquer the woman of his dreams, we peek at the universe: time immemorial books of poetry open up to receive your poems, collect the breathtaking lines that you have copiously bequeathed. It feels so good to be a man; it feels so great to be loved by the woman who opens like a lily to the heat and to your legacy. Somehow, somewhere the thousand kisses burst and twinkle and fall like blessing rain.