The Story: Chasing Leonard

In the hush of a Montreal studio where sacred triangles once met Leonard Cohen’s quiet guitar.  E. Laurence Bake sat at his easel, hat tilted low like a dreamer in disguise.

Leonard had walked the same hidden paths on Boogie Street at midnight, lovers and assassins brushing shoulders.  Sunday mornings spent teaching the nuns how to pray… and how to prey on every illusion that kept the soul small.

Laurence felt the likeness in his bones. Both men wore the dreamer’s cloak, even in the bedroom of their own hearts. Both chased the same eternal song: one with words that sang like paint, the other with paint that sang like words.

So Laurence lifted his brush and let the poem pour onto canvas.  A woman in a wide-brimmed hat appeared, eyes softly closed, coffee cup steaming beside her—undercover, yet utterly free.  Triangles of light and shadow danced around her, the very geometry Leonard once whispered about in his songs.

In that moment, the two artists became one rhythm. Laurence smiled, knowing the painting would speak for them both:

You do not need to be found.  You only need to remember you were never lost.

And somewhere in the divine quiet, Leonard smiled back.  Two souls, one painted poem, teaching the world that the greatest chase ends the moment we stop running and simply become the song.

____________