We Are Going to Be Shot, Part 2

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l'Annee Terrible, "June 1871"

Standing aloof,
     what do our pities mean to them?
What were the privileged to them
     before this time of darkness?

Did we ever protect these women?
Did we take their naked and shivering
     children in, and nourish them?
Has this one any useful skills?
     Does that one even know how to read?

 

From ignorance comes delusion.
Untaught, unloved, uncared for,
what does the cold do to them,
and what did hunger teach them?
Starvation burned the Tuileries.

 

In the name of these damaged souls,
I declare this — I, the man
immune to parades and obligations —
that a dead child moves me more
than the prospect of a defunct palace.

The poor die so easily,
     and this is why.

We find them unfathomable.
They smile, or threaten us
when all is lost to them;
haughty one moment, indifferent
the next, they almost willingly
line up for their executions.

 

We need to think on this.

These blank-eyed damned
we strike down so easily,
show no despair — but why?
Their puny lives have had no joy.

 

The thing we do to the least of us,
may be done to us in turn —
the Golden Rule’s inversion.
Our fates are linked.

 

Brothers, spread happiness below.
Fail to do this, and reap
the cost of woe above. Alas!

Were you such fools to think
the miserable could love their lives?

 

It is all a matter of balance.

True order, and lasting laws,
     a moral sense,
          a charming and virile peace:
all these you will find
     if the poor are content.

 

Just look. The hearts of the suffering
reveal themselves. A sphinx,
remaining masked, displays
its dazzling nudity.
Dark on one side, light on the other —
just probe the inky dark, and, lo!
the blaze of the abyss is clear.

 

To easy it is, the deed complete,
to shudder and look away
as hillocks of dead rise up
among the indifferent willows.
A year from now, who will know?

A slum will be cleared, new
     houses will be offered up.
Once shrouded, the dead are gone.

Are you at ease with this?

The ghosts of enemies
who shrieked to die,
     are bad enough.
To be mocked by the poor
as you shoot them is unbearable.
They will not keep still. We quake
in fear as phantoms take residence
among us. No sleep for us
so long as our victims perish
     with such sinister ease.