Joan of Arc

Over the break I've been reading a wonderful biography of Leonard Cohen. Insightful, engrossing and generally a good, easy read.

This is the fire at Take5, where Rol and I dropped by this lunchtime (a rare occasion these days) and purely by chance I came across the lyrics to Joan of Arc written by Leonard Cohen back in the 1970s:

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc as she came riding through the dark, no moon to keep her armour bright, no man to get her through this smoky night. She said: "I'm tired of the war. I want the kind of work I had before: a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite."

"I'm glad to hear you talk this way. I've watched you riding every day, and something in me yearns to win such a cold and lonesome heroine." "And who are you?" she sternly spoke, to the one beneath the smoke. "Why I'm fire," he replied, "and I love your solitude. I love your pride."

"Then fire make your body cold. I'm going to give you mine to hold." And saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride. And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood. If he was fire, oh, then she was wood.

I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eye. Myself, I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, must it be so bright!

And so ends another year.