THE LEAF

A narrative that explores the cycle of life through the perspective of an oak leaf.

Debut authorLandon offers readers a modern-day parable with this slim, 48-page narrative, using the travels of a single leaf to teach a lesson of spiritual unity and personal identity. It begins with the aforementioned Leaf, clinging to the old tree to which it’s been attached its entire life. Fearful of letting go, it cries to the Oak, “I fear that I am the last to leave, I fear I will not find my kin, I fear this silent wind will still and let me fall.” The Oak explains that the Leaf must embrace the cycle of life and resign itself to “regal winter,” or death, which will “carry you and your kind towards the springtime of your new worlds.” Thus begins the Leaf’s journey toward discovery and rebirth, as it’s “taken by the winds of change to the icy realms…inside the windows of soul.” The Leaf experiences the beauty of nature as it travels, as when it lands on a “pool upon a hard stone face, with the reflection of the sky laid upon its surface like a memory,” and it faces terror when it’s consumed by a great owl (“And the leaf was devoured and chewed and crushed and swallowed and blended into blood’spilt fleshstrips”) only to be later born again. Overall, the conceit of the Leaf’s voyage as a representation of the life cycle is a compelling one. However, Landon’s prose often feels heavy-handed and, in some cases, downright confusing, with several images that readers may find difficult to grasp. For example, as a storm rages, the author writes that “The bones creaked and groaned like galleon’s on an open sea while the cartilages screamed in delightful duress as they stretched to limits never before reached like yogi’s to a posture prayed”; in this passage, it’s unclear to whom or what the bones and cartilages belong. In addition, the work would have benefited from more careful copy editing to catch distracting grammatical errors.

An intriguing concept that’s marred by uneven execution.