I’ve long been a big fan of Canadian folk singer/poet Bruce Cockburn. From his radical social-justice songs in the 80s to his more recent mellow spiritual songs, all his music has killer poetic lines.
“You’ve got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight” from the song Trouble with Normal was one of my favorite lines in the 80s. I blasted that cassette in my beat-up Honda Civic and screamed that line at the top of my lungs.
He’s 80 years old now but still putting out great music. In a recent song called “On a Roll,” the chorus says,
Time takes its toll
But in my soul
I’m on a roll
This really hits home. I saw him in concert recently, and he has to limp on stage with a cane, but when the guitar is in his hand, it’s like he’s 30 again. I also feel my body and mind giving out, but the yearning for something transcendent still bursts out of me. Another song, “Us All,” says, “Open the vein, let kindness rain.” I have this image of sticking a knife in my vein and seeing some kind of indescribable compassionate emotion trapped in this degrading mortal coil burst out.
Describing the main character in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo says, “Is there not in every human soul, and was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a divine spark, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?
It’s all there, waiting to burst out.