The venerable old pine trees of Mt. Baldy Photo © 1997 by Jarkko Arjatsalo SEISEN IS DANCING Seisen has a long body. Her shaved head threatens the skylight and her feet go down into the vegetable cellar. When she dances for us at one of our infrequent celebrations, the dining hall with it's cargo of weightless monks and nuns, bounces around her hips like a hula-hoop. The venerable old pine trees crack out of sentry duty and get involved, as do the San Gabriel mountains and the flat cities of Claremont, Upland and the Inland Empire. And ocean speaks to ocean saying, What the hell, let's go with it, rouse ourselves. The Milky Way undoes its spokes and cleaves to Seisen's haunches, as do the worlds beyond, and worlds unborn, not to mention darkest holes of brooding anti-matter, and random flying mental objects like this poem, fucking up the atmosphere. It's all going round her hips, and what her hips enclose; it's all lit up by her face, her ownerless expression. And then there's this aching fool over here, no, over here who thinks that Seisen's still a woman, who's trying to find a place to stand where Seisen isn't Dancing. Copyright © by Leonard Cohen. Mt. Baldy, 1997. Reprinted with permission. Any other use forbidden.