Letters in Music: "The Letters"

Xa falamos do canadense Leonard Cohen nunha entrada anterior, pero recuperámolo hoxe xa que por unha bendita accidental coincidencia atopei esta canción intitulada "The Letters" (2004), do seu undécimo álbum Dear Heather, que canta acompañado de Sharon Robinson.

A canción é persoal, desgarradora, unha conversa entre el e ela. El repróchalle a ela que non lle adoitaban gustar as cartas que enviaba, aínda que agora por fin entende o miolo do que nelas lle conta e bica esas "páxinas de preocupación". Así e todo, ela nunca apareceu, a pesares de que el "lle deu a [súa] dirección". Ela bótalle en cara que a el lle levou "anos cruzar as liñas da autodefensa", e agora ve as feridas, a perda, "a intensidade do argumento", e tamén como comeza unha carta "á que vén despois".

Triste pero fermosa, non si?

"The Letters"
You never liked to get

The letters that I sent.

But now you've got the gist

Of what my letters meant.

You're reading them again,

The ones you didn't burn.

You press them to your lips,

My pages of concern.

I said there'd been a flood.

I said there's nothing left.

I hoped that you would come.

I gave you my address.

Your story was so long,

The plot was so intense,

It took you years to cross

The lines of self-defense.

The wounded forms appear:

The loss, the full extent;

And simple kindness here,

The solitude of strength.

You walk into my room.

You stand there at my desk,

Begin your letter to

The one who's coming next.