Leonard Cohen — After the Sabbath Prayers

After the Sabbath prayers The Baal Shem's butterfly Followed me down the hill. Now the Baal Shem is dead These hundreds of years And a butterfly ends its life In three flag-swept days. So this was a miracle, Dancing down all these wars and truces Yellow as a first-day butterfly, Nothing of time or massacre In its bright flutter. Now the sharp stars are in the sky And I am shivering as I did last night, And the wind is not warmer For the yellow butterfly Folded somewhere on a sticky leaf And moving like a leaf itself. And how truly great A miracle this is, that I, Who this morning saw the Baal Shem's butterfly Doing its glory in the sun, Should spend this night in darkness, Hands pocketed against the flies and cold.