Sympathy for the Angel 

According to various legends, the devil and Saint-Michael opposed each other several times on Mont-Dol. One day they came to blows: Satan was thrown against the rock with such violence that his rear-end left a mark there; then, trying not to fall from the cliff, he scratched deeply into the rock.

—Tourist sign, Mont-Dol, Brittany (translation from French)

As I show my daughter the grooves
the devil gouged into the rock 
as he slid off the cliff, I wonder about Michael. 
Even in this victory he seems doomed 
to vigilance, the paranoia of a father who knows 
evil is out there dreaming up new versions of itself, 
spinning its ring of skeleton keys that open any lock 
(especially the ones that have been checked 
and rechecked). Wouldn’t it be exhausting 
to be tasked with winning this cosmic game 
of whack-a-mole? 

Across the bay, the angel stands 
with his sword drawn, wings out, heel 
pinning down the dragon in the unreal gold statue 
above the grand abbey of Mont-St.-Miche
But here near the cliff where they battled, 
there’s just a small church, La Chapelle l’Espérance, 
the Chapel of Hope, that could hold, at most, 
five or six people. Inside, a sign apologizes
for the recent price increase for votive candles.
“The maintenance of this sacred place,” it says, 
“is becoming harder and harder to keep up.”

This article appears in May 2026.