In the Shadow

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l'Annee Terrible, Epilogue 

 

SPIRIT OF THE OLD WORLD:

A flood? Oh, very well — floods come and go.

Just go about your business now.
You do what you have to, as water
is what it is and gravity and wind prevail.

So high and deep? You mean to break a record.

But why such gloom and ferocity?
Why whirl about with that hole
in the middle so like a crying mouth?

 

Why do you hulk about
howling in a made-up shadow,
your black winds bugle-blowing
as if to turn day to night? We know the sky
is still azure-blue above you!

Your mounting waves are impolite,
they murmur the rude songs
of some child prodigy.

This much and no more!
That’s quite enough, I tell you!

 

You do your thing out there. In here,
we stand for old laws, old obstacles,
brakes harnessing every bold thought.
We hoard our misery and nothingness,
our little dungeons where we put hopes
into slow starvation, and lock up souls
within the cells they willingly abide.
No sudden gust will overturn the way
we men keep women in their places.
No random wave can splash across
those delicacy-laden banquet boards
the dispossessed can never savor.

Waters, do you mean to rob us of all
our cherished fatal memories, our shield
of superstition none dare to doubt?

Touch nothing inside these walls!
Just go away. Our holy things, our feasts,

down to the last dumpling, are sacrosanct!

 

Now humble yourself, and flatten out,
and above all, be quiet, now!

So who am I to issue commands to the wave?

I built these enclosures, you know,
I hem in humankind; my towers
shade and humble them aways.

Still roaring, fool? And rising, still?

Chaos I smell in your frenzied impact.
Is that a Bible floating by? Are those
the graven tablets of law
     you just now toppled over?

No, not the scaffold, tumbling down —
we need that! We use it all the time.

There on that high dais, the king —
you must not — oh, he is swept away!

 

I have here a list of sacred men.
If you know what’s good for you,
you will spare their houses. Oh, dear,
they tell me the Sacred College
is inundated and only fish
are left to wear a white collar there.

Where judges sat, their robes erupt
from out the broken windows.
Their bones will host corals now.

Is nothing sacred? What sound
is battering my palace door?

My bomb-proof bunker is safe.
Or was. Up come the currents
from down below; and from on high
the torn roof lets icy torrents in.

 

Do you have any idea
    just who you are dealing with?
Kings, priests, and presidents
     take orders from me.

It cannot be — I am engulfed.
I am floating to who knows where!

 

How can the sea disobey me?
I made up the God of Nature, did I not?
Whatever I will, men make it so!

Disobedient Sea! How dare you!

The waters are reaching my chin!

 

THE FLOOD:

Old One, you mistook me.

Accustomed as you were to tides,
that come and go, and rise and fall,

nothing prepared you for the inevitable.

I am the flood that comes, and stays.