The Shadow or the Leaf

By Shawn Michel de Montaigne

What came first, the shadow or the leaf
it falls upon,
the sunlight or the pain?
Painted yellow, what calls, and what echoes, and what cries
through the valley;
And what strains the surface of things
when joy surges and the depths reach up,
and the wet sand dries and blows unseen to the dune ...
And what settles over my head,
misty and mysterious, indivisibly fine ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawn Michel de Montaigne
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201731373

Shawn Michel de Montaigne

I'm a writer, illustrator, and fractalist. A wonderer, wanderer, and an unapologetic introvert. I'm a romantic; I'm inspired by the epic, the authentic, the numinous, and the luminous. Most of all, I'm blessed.

Book preview

1.

––––––––

The slogging weight bears down on me,

on my aging shoulders,

on my scratched reflections,

on the depthless light that colors the world

like a clingy film of absence and want.

––––––––

I'm an angel in training.

I'm bound to the earth by its dense evil.

I cry to the skies for release.

For justice.

For redemption.

––––––––

I cannot fly, and my steps shrink

with the years and the knowledge that

more often than not,

and often with absolute impunity,

evil triumphs absolutely.

––––––––

I can still see the good out there; I can.

I can see the sterling engraving in red sunsets,

the cold lacing of fresh frost beneath ice-blue skies,

and I can see it in those I love.

––––––––

But lurking just beneath,

in memory and in doubt,

a vile man lives his last,

having spent his days abusing and fucking

and hoarding and shaming and perjuring

and bloating and damning and, yes, twice now,

murdering. Unapologetically.

––––––––

The slogging weight bears down on me.

2.

––––––––

Days are shorter now.

Nights stretch before me like black silk,

and the unsettled sky belies cormorants

reflecting over the sleepy sea.

––––––––

Time is wax burned by angels.

I'm the wick.

I don't mind; where I once was

the purest breeze resides. Besides,

I tire of my own heat.

––––––––

I haven't lived most of my life.

Here, now, I see the error of my ways.

They were everyone else's ways, not mine.

3.

––––––––

Chasing the vacuums for attention.

Chasing them for recognition.

Chasing them for cash.

––––––––

A million words unread.

I'm supposed to care what the vacuums think.

I'm supposed to pander to them.

––––––––

But I can't.

I gave my life away for free once,

believing it would get my work noticed.

But bleeding for vacuums

is a game