Prelude to The Terrible Year

      

By Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Victor Hugo

With ink enough, and paper a-plenty,
I set out to recount this terrible year,
but here as I lean and squint,
     writing arm poised and ready,
legs tensed at my writing table,
     I hesitate.
Must one continue on this way?
     Shall I go on?
O France! O grief! I want to flee! —
To go a billion billion miles in space, and turn
only to see one star (my own!) go fading out? —
     Ah, no, not that!
A mournful specter rises, no Muse, but Shame.
Under her tutelage I write;
the gray ink of gloomy anguish flows;
pen-strokes scar the pages down and up;
words curl up cursed, like little scourges.

No matter! Take heart! We must go on!
A voice behind me utters: “Persist,
for history does not write itself!”

This century has been indicted.
Brought to the bar, it stands defiantly.
Here with my book, sworn in, I stand.
Tremble, O Crime: I am the witness!