While the Sea Roars

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Annee Terrible, “April 1871”

 

While the sea roars and the waves roll,
and on the horizon tumults collapse
upon themselves in warfare wild,
one watchman, the poet, sits bound
as though imprisoned there, atop
the tower of his agony and exile.

One can watch chaos in its endless
variety, and never be tired of it,
yet what he craves is for harmony
to finally takes its turn, the still calm
when wind and tide are in perfect balance.

 

In dark times, he has been here before,
doomed by the earth’s curve to never see
the place of his birth and of his triumphs;
but then, in times much like the ones
we suffer now, the pensive poet sought
the company of men to disarm them,
to pour out to them his heart;
he loved the vanquished, but no hate
for the victor poisoned his days.
Armies heard his pleas, and paused.
When he petitioned, sometimes
    the cities heeded, mellowing.

When the living walked blind
to the civil war’s drumbeat, his lines
called some back from the brink of murder,
just from the simple clarity of truth
he mustered as his sword and armor,
and this solitary man, aged now
beyond his days with grief and shock,
battered by the inexorable, still sought
to be the messenger of peace.

 

If one Prometheus complains
for all except himself, who hears?
“When does inflicted pain suffice
to call itself a surfeit? What drop
of shed blood is the penultimate
for the soul sickens
     at the next sacrifice?
If you are tired, why not be good
instead of gathering spite
    for tomorrow’s manhunt?

If on this rock he calls to everyone,
Peace! Pity! Grace! — who hears?

 

He knows his duty. To stay, not leap,
to channel the voice within him always,
to be the humble bulrush that floats
atop a tidal wave, held up
by heart that cannot stop its beating.