Untitled in Opening Tuning

Anthony Lawrence

The vineyard is pinstriped with light and shade, though shade is scarce.

To the south, a fire will soon become a killing furnace yet here,

on the last day of the first month of the year, the news is good.

The Triffids play to all but empty grass. Paul Kelly’s quiet set calls

the faithful out from under tents and trees. When he leaves the stage

it’s almost dark. After the break, Leonard Cohen and his band walk out

to a standing ovation. It’s not the crowd but what it brings and receives

that matters. The man who wears an Armani suit to sweep the floor

and do his washing doffs his fedora, smiles, then steps into the opening

chords of Dance Me To The End of Love. Someone nearby is sobbing.

A man holds his daughter up as if to receive a blessing. When he lets

her down, the bottle of Ballantines we’d smuggled in is kicked from

my hand as I fill a glass. I pour another as the band goes into The Future.

Cohen’s sense of style and old world manners are evident and in

abundance. Often, as the Shepherd of the Strings, Javier Mas is soloing

on the banduria, sitting on the edge of a red armchair, Cohen kneels

before him, hat in hand, watching respectfully. This gesture is afforded

everyone, and often. There Ain’t No Cure For Love sets the tone

and spirit for the night. I overhear a woman say she’d been with him

in London. He prefaces songs with stories of depression, meditation

and how, in the end, after years of drugs and study, cheerfulness just kept on

breaking through. After Bird on the Wire, in the first intermission,

I walk through the crowd and listen. Up on the hill it seems too quiet

for a concert, with people standing around as if trying to remember

something they’d meant to say, or do. The stage is like a scallop shell,

with dark blue screens and Cohen’s own design: a heart with

a hummingbird in flight above it. As he introduces The Sisters of Mercy,

I want to shout something about George Johnston, but keep myself busy

and in check with a bottle and a glass. Leonard Cohen knows how

reclusiveness and shunning fellowship affect the head and heart.

At the end of If It Be Your Will and before I Tried to Leave You,

he offers his blessings to those returning with friends and family

and to those going home to their solitude. Then it’s over.

At 74 he won’t be back. Walking to the bus, I see an old friend

from Wagga. He’s off somewhere with the night in his head

and I will not interrupt him.

Anthony Lawrence lives in Newcastle. His most recent book of poems Bark (UQP) was shortlisted for the 2008 Judith Wright Calanthe Award and the Age Book of the Year Awards. The Welfare of my Enemy, a verse novel, is forthcoming.