The Two Voices, Part 2

by Brett Rutherford

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

THE HIGH VOICE

Do not listen. Remain a faithful soul.

A heart, no more than a sky, can be darkened.

I am conscience, a virgin; and this

is what the State calls Reason, a public harlot.

She confuses the true by the falsehood she explicates.

 

She is the bastard and shifty sister
     of common sense.

I admit that dim light has its supporters;

that it is found excellent and useful

to avoid a shock, to ward off a bullet,

to walk a straight way at a dark crossroad,

and to prepare oneself for small duties.

Inn-keepers make practicality
     their motto and shop-sign.

What goes for it is its simplicity,
     the way of the short-sighted,

the clever, the shrewd, the prudent,
     the discreet, those who can only
          and ever see things up close,

those who crouch down to examine webs
     with the tenacity of a spider —

but someone must be for the stars!

 

Someone is needed
     who will stand for fraternity,

honor and clemency, freedom and law,

and for truth, even if truth
     is in a place of dark resplendence!

The darker the night you are in,
     the more sublime the constellations!

They shine, eternal summer’s blooms;

but they need, in their serenity,

that the watching universe

     in need of guidance,
           bears witness to them;
they need to know that,

renewed on earth from age to age,

one man, reassuring his condemned brothers,

cries through the night: Oh stars, shine on!

 

Nothing would be more frightening than this:
that ray and shadow, virtue and crime
were one and the same in the abyss of night.
Nothing would accuse and cancel God more
than this lost clarity of distinction. If we
and all our thoughts and deeds, bled out
into the depths of the heavens
     without will or meaning.
Nothing would drive the universe more mad
that the uselessness of its own light.

Therefore justice is good.
     The star in whose name
          we seek it is good.
Just think: in twenty terrible countries,
among them Sudan, Darfur, and Gabon,
it was the unchallenged law
that humans were taken, bound, and dragged,
transported and sold by force, until
in the rising of a star, a Wilberforce[1]

dragged nations to the bench
     and shouted, “No!”
From whence come such men?
    

If random men be just,
     even at the cost of martyrdom,
the universe redeems itself.

To let justice come out of oneself,

     is the true radiance of man.

Wherever iniquity act is done,

wherever its ill gains accumulate to power,

a voice must speak.
It is necessary that in the night,
a light, like a comet, suddenly appears.

 

In heaven this god, the True,
     on earth its priests, the Just.
These are the two necessities.

The way the wind is blowing
     must be contradicted.

The flood of the inevitable
     must be resisted.

Thus rise and soar
     fairness and equality.
There is no other rule.

 

Who, then, takes the summit

of Mont Blanc as his home?
     The eagle.

 

---

[1] William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833), reformer whose anti-slavery crusades led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.

The Two Voices, Part 1

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, “July 1871”

 

 

I

THE WISE VOICE

If everything political
     is of the moment only,
and all expedient,
what should you do? Not this,
assuredly: deny, repudiate,
and blame the other,
when actions are made
regardless of principles.

O Man, beware! In vain
and useless effort you dissipate
your energies and acquire no honor.

 

I am the one who guides
when honest men get lost
in the forest of their words
and deeds. What do I call myself,
and how do I fare say this?
My name need only sound
as a whisper in your ear
to stop you in your tracks,
for I am called Reason.

 

Cato defied me, and learned
the cost of doing so. O, Poet,
in seeking the best
    of the moment opportune,
you lose the Good. The thing
you wish for slips away.
Striving for Everything,
your contrary deeds
amount to Nothing.

Let pass away the things
that need to pass away.
Your inclination always goes
toward the fallen — such
is the heart you were given! —

this means, alas,
     that you gain no victory.

 

Too much you have been led by heart,
     too little by common sense.
The truth that seems self-evident,
     too closely held, takes on
          the air of self-deception.
Ideals are rarified things, yet dreams
     inspired by them seem real,
          of just within reach.
One gains the far-off look
     of the dreamer impractical
          precisely from over-thought.
How far should one plunge? How deep
     the dream until it bottoms out
          in the achievable?

 

The wise man dreads the epithet, “Unjust!”
     and treads too shy of firmness.
Fearing the sting of too much justice
     (which always seems to punish
          someone, somewhere),
he seeks a middle way.

Can the truth of the matter
     be entirely true, the false
          as black as night, or gray?
The law’s letter, and its intent,

     is only the ore to be refined.
The law is gold, but one
     must learn how to extract it.

 

Sometimes the wise man does the opposite
of what one supposed he would do,
     and that is the greatest art.

You never get to the point;
     I get to point a little late,
and a late arrival at the just and true
     beats never getting there at all.

 

In short,
you ask that men evolve to god-like status;
I bring the divine will down to earth.
That is the difference between us.
You brave the chaos, expecting order.
Fearing the waste, I gather things together.

The bootstraps you trust fall short
of lifting you from the sink-hole
     of your own making.

 

And what is man, anyway?
     An imbecile being who suffers!
Do you imagine you can make him over,
     and maybe multiply his senses
          by a factor of three? Will that help?

Give me each human specimen
     and nature made it — take any
          living passerby, the same.

To hell with the one who preaches and bellows
     and tries to make them something else.

The small ones are as blind from such lightning
as they were blind before from the dark.
The best they can do is to muddle through.
A little revelation is enough for them.

It’s fine and good to make a speech,
    and even to mean every word of it,
about not liking war, about the need
     to topple every scaffold. On paper,
that sounds superb … but then,
we turn around and do the opposite.

My dear, the shop walls lean against those
    of the busy temple behind them:
chase out the money-changers
    from the place as Jesus did,
and share his fault: a little too much
    of a god for his own good, or yours.
I would need reliable guarantors to say
     whether or not the Prussians got
          their five billions to the penny.

 

In everything, the wise man moderates.
Calm in my own place, I blame the infinite
which has gotten too big for its britches —
it is bigger than it once was, you know,
from overuse by poets and scientists —
Creation now has to take in
     so many millions and billions of things.

 

Just so, good minds, in their amplitude
     have many criticisms to make.
I needn’t say that excess is this era’s fault.

The sun is always “superb,” is it not?
And must every day of spring be “sweet”?

Too many sunbeams! Too many roses!

Not a dull day or pale bloom in the lot!
That is the drawback of enthusiasm.

 

And — God forbid! even the Deity is prone
     to bloated exaggeration.
In imitating Him, one falls
     into a petrifying perfection.
Great danger there! Better to imitate
some lesser model, I’d day. Besides,
God does not always give the best example.

 

Why be so touchy and on-edge? I ask.
Jesus was off-base for not considering
the reasonable offer of Beelzebub.
Not that he should have accepted,
but just compare, if you will,
     how rude God is
          when the Devil is honest.

 

Jesus need only have said,
     “We shall see, my friend,”
          and let it rest at that.

Wise men keep pride in its place,
     like a watch in its proper pocket.
The ant plods along without a drum
     to thunder his doings,
          and somehow a quiet routine
               gets everything done.

Humans are just humans,
     women and men alike,
          not bad, not good.

 

“As white as snow.” Full stop.
     “As black as coal.” Neither.

White within black, mixed, striped,
     skeptical and full of doubts.

Each mediocrity is a politician.

We sought grandeur, but ought
     we not prefer proportion?

To act like Aristides or like Phocion,
hurtling about with swords,
     ready to sacrifice self and others,
to be heroic, epic, and beautiful —
     what a rotten business that is!

Show a wise man the shattered state
     of the ruined Parthenon,
and he’ll prefer obscurity
     in the warm hut of a beaver.

 

I might have dealings with a Rothschild:
it’s actually possible. An Adamastor,[1]
immense and menacing on a long sea journey,
is yesterday’s Titan, an episode. Today’s
profound monster is a millionaire.

The statesman does not ask for much.
He says he venerates the universal vote,
but keeps one hand on a ballet-box.
He banishes slavery, but keeps
    servile and dependent helpers
wherever it is convenient.

Breaking one chain, he keeps
     its inner threat intact.

 

Men, taken one by one, are small.
Their consciences are easily dwarfed
     by fears and apprehensions.
The statesman takes their measure.

He takes away the will by which
     they could surpass themselves.
He finds ways to keep them dazzled,
     but without thunder and whirling about.
Within their narrow plane he seems
     the one who does wonders on their behalf

Mediocrity, my friend, is its own reward,
nothing is ugly there, and nothing beautiful,
no one feels high or low compared to another,
“warm” and “cool” bland out the idea
     of hot and cold. Day follows day, there,
with plenty of holidays’ distractions.

The Sublime is a region uninhabitable:
who wants to live on Mont Blanc’s summit?

 

A kind of pretzel the wise man becomes,
in pretending to be mediocre, yet with
a flex of will and muscle he can unbend himself.

Hugo, look here — they threw stones at you

in Brussels. Amid bell-clamors, the editors
of holier-than-thou journals rattle on, while
newspapers obliged to the late Emperor
say things about you that are read with horror,
that you get telegrams from abroad,
     that bad wine is served up at your table,
that the restrains of Lent taint your repast,
and that someone of significance
     will no longer dine there,
and on and on with sinister gossip.

Hugo, you brought this on yourself.

 

The nut-case Mr. Veuillot[2] calls you out;

your crimes are so numerous, his memory
confuses them: add drunkenness and theft,
any number of offenses with your kepi on,
and avarice, of course, ill-gotten gains!

You live under the clamor of denunciation.

This is your fault. Why are you not reasonable?

Stop standing up to evil. Be proper.

 

A good thing it is to stand up to evil,
but to be alone is not a good thing.
You, a bearded man, an old man,
     a grandfather even,
are not meant to just keep on going
while your century recedes.

A white-haired and solitary fighter
      looks ridiculous,
the valiant who live long enough
     to be prudent, grow into stillness.
Young Nestor behaved like Ajax;
Ajax, had he lived,
     would have become a Nestor.[3]
Do what is proper for your age
     and teach the people your wisdom.
Truth lacking style’s garment
     seems naked savagery.
Success cannot be bullied,
     the mellow, aged voice inspires.

Without the lesson you can impart
the Right is on the side of every tyrant,
and everything that glitters is gold.

To the weather-vane cult,
     the errant wind is god.

 

Feel free to dump on Bonaparte,
     he fell, and he deserves it.
Do not blame Reason if what seems Fate
     is suddenly turned topsy-turvy.
I am not leaving the scene, so go, succeed!

We are all, in an oblique way, agreed,
that the purpose of a Republic
    is to get rid of enemies
          (whoever they happen to be)
with cannon-fire and half-measures;

if neither order nor a proper monarch
appear on the horizon, why be surprised?
You did not choose anyone!

 

It’s all quite absurd. If you’re so indignant,
you might be right. Yet all, from young to old,
the worst and the best, the great and the small,
regard just as you do the same evidence.

Each fact or deed contains a kernel of good,
which we must ferret out. Is this not so?

When Torquemada runs the show, we warm
our bottoms from the heat of the stake.

Politics is the art of taking from filth,
and gall, pride posing as modesty,
the baseness of the idle rich,
     the insolence of the mis-shapen,
the overlooked errors, the crimes,
the venom of treachery and betrayal,
the universal soup made up
     of yes and no and white and black,
spiced with Rome and Geneva’s
     paper’d hypocrisies,
into a beverage that’s just about right
for the honest man to swallow.

 

Down here we have little use for principles.
Up there, they shine. That’s nice for the birds.
If someone like Morus wants to study them,
let’s offer a salute. They twinkle on,
     as real and as distant as the flaming stars.

Lucky for us the clouds roll in
     to cover and obscure such certainties.
They are up there, we are down here.
     The Absolute is just a nuisance, you see.

Remember, I came to talk to you
     about the Expedient (see how
     I can confound with capital letters,
     as well as any metaphysician!)

Turgot[4] and the liberals were wrong.
     Long live the reformer Terray![5]

 

I seek the real,
     you, poet, seek only the true.

We live by the real,
     but the true breaks us.

Real things fear the abstract true.
Recognize your mistake.

Duty is the use of the facts on the ground.
     You misread it.

Instead of the relative, you jump to the absolute.

 

You are that madman who,
     wanting to see clearly
     in the depth of a cellar,
or rummage in some pile of ashes,
or who, needing a lantern
    for a search in the woods,

thrusts his hand up
     into the inky sky

to use a star as a candle,

That’s who you are.

 

---

[1] Adamastor. From The Lusiad, a Titan assigned to The Cape of Good Hope, encountered by Vasco da Gama.

[2] Louis Veuillot (11 October 1813 – 7 March 1883) was a French journalist and author who helped to popularize ultramontanism (a philosophy favoring Papal supremacy). His papist newspaper was titled l’Univers.

[3] Nestor is the oldest character in Homer’s Iliad. Ajax, the young hero, is the strongest of the Greeks, but goes mad and commits suicide right after the end of the Trojan War.

[4] Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, 10 May 1727 – 18 March 1781), commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Sometimes considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic liberalism. (See Wikipedis Article)

[5] Abbot Joseph Marie Terray (1715 – 18 February 1778) was a Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV, an agent of fiscal reform. (See Wikipedia article)

The Innocents

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, L’Année Terrible, “June 1871”

 

XVIII

But still, we have the children! Does Fate,
going about its implacable business, pause
to listen to the murmur of these blossoming souls?
When, cheerfully, the child runs forth,
does the worried prayer that follows him
speak to anyone at all? Does Destiny amend
its thoughts, when a sweet child whispers,
of the day’s delight that awaits her?

 

Oh! What a shadow! Both sing, two
fragile heads lean one upon the other,
where floats the glow of their made-up
celebrations. Their games
reflect a better paradise
than any a weary nurse can imagine.

 

At each awakening, a child
has a bright heart as new as morning.

Their innocence is primed for joy,
    their eyes intent for surprises,
and just as the bird who chirps on a branch,
or the star that seems new-hatched
     at one of the black horizons,
they do not worry themselves
     about what their elders might do,
for their business and their adventures
is all of great nature blossoming.

 

“Look what I found,” they delight in saying.
They ask nothing of any god but sunlight.
So long as some vermilion ray
     beams through diaphanous hands
     to warm up their little fingers,
they are content!
“And what does little Jeanne desire today?” I ask.

She need not answer; she points
to where the cedars arch up to frame
the bluest of blue in the heavens.

A Verb's Past Participle

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, “June 1871”

 

People have, in their minds, an exaggerated sense of the value, the abilities, the importance of the national guard ... My God, you have seen the kepi [cap] of Mr. Victor Hugo which symbolized this situation.

(General Trochu at the National Assembly — June 14, 1871.)

 

You, Trochu,
     more of a past participle than an active verb,
a man whose virtues could not be counted
     because they amounted to zero.
I am told you are a brave, and honest,
     and pious soldier, as modest
as any nobody, a good eye
     over an empty cannon, a man
a great perspective,
     too many perspectives, in fact,
a man of courage
     but with such Christian virtues
that you can serve both masters
by doing nothing whatsoever
and yet remain a man of your word —
I hope I am doing you justice
     by this little conjugation,
as you bow to the nation
     while creeping at Mass
across the cathedral stones,
you figure of speech —
well, what do you want from me?
Why aim this offensive barb my way —

to give the Prussians pleasure?

 

Amid the German siege,
and what felt like a Russian winter.
I was, I admit, no more
than an unarmed old man,
honored to be in Paris
    locked up like everyone
     with the Prussians on every side.

Sometimes I took advantage
    when it was dark enough
     to evade the grapeshot,
to climb the great wall
     and greet our defenders,
to be able to say “Present!”
     though not a Fighter.
At seventy, I may have been
     good for nothing,
     but I did not capitulate.

 

The laurels in your hand

     turn into nettles.

What the hell, it’s against me
     that you turn your ire?

You led in such a miserly way
     when we were starving!
Having spent so few missiles,
     did you hoard them for me?
You couldn’t be bothered
     to cross the Marne’s peninsula,
so now you take aim at me?
For what? I left you alone.
Why does blue cloth
     on my poor white head
offend you? Does my kepi
     molest your rosary?

 

You poor, unhappy creature!

Five months of cold and hunger went by.
We stared at the abyss. We never
bothered you, united and confident
even as we hid in cellars, quivering.
You are a great general, if you say so,
but when we have to run into battle,
go out to sea, or push a whole army
into the enemy fire, who sounds the charge?
I prefer the little drum of a Barra.

 

Think of Garibaldi who came from Caprera,

think of Kléber in Cairo, of Manin in Venice,

and just calm down. Great Paris dies

because you lack, not heart, but faith.

Your legacy will be a bitter one. They’ll say
France, thanks to him, went lame.

In those great days, amid the solemn anguish
this bleeding, wounded country,
     which in its heart never fell,
marched for Gambetta out there,
and limped with Trochu back here.

 

If you are a verb, I spell you out:
“has been” just gets it right.

A Madness Came Over Us

by Brett Rutherford

Translated and adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, “June 1871”

[This poem refers to few actual events. It is written in the middle of the terrible reprisals against French people perceived to have been, or to have been allied with, the defeated Communards. Thousands of people were rounded up and executed, and many others were arrested, imprisoned, or exiled to penal colonies. Hugo would be involved in a number of appeals for amnesty, and continued to plead for a policy of no reprisals. This troubled poem should be read, not as a political statement, but as a poet's general deliberations on how the madness of civil war comes to pass, the extent to which individuals are to blame, the need to document and "accuse" FACTS rather than people. It ends with a gloomy speculation that even worse forces of history were hatching that would sweep people away in more waves of senseless violence. Considering the future history of Europe, we can see his dreads as justified. — BR]

 

XVI

Concerning this somber history,
I wish to condemn no one.
The winner always wins, his goal
and will prevails, and yet
he is dragged along by his victory.

Civil war comes, and mourning,
and draped in black as he is
the victor just fresh from triumph
stumbles and loses his footing — lo!

the inky-black waters that swallows
him, we call success; he chokes
at the very thought of more glory
if it feels and tastes like this.

 

This is why I pity them all,
martyrs and executioners alike.

Alas! woe to the orphan-makers!

Misfortune! misfortune
to the widow-makers, woe upon woe!

 

Woe when the rivers run red
with frightful carnage, and when

defiling their beds with a torrential flood,

the blood of man flows
where the rain once fell!
The sky is incarnadine.

Faced with a dead man,
a double fear distresses me:

I pity the killer as much as the corpse.

 

The dead man holds the living one
immobile in his rigid hand. He can flee,
but his victim follows along.
Taking one path to evade the phantom
he comes face to face with it again.
It has no eyes, but ever it knows his name.
Turning up the dead as though to kill
a second time, his blows are in vain.

The night and drugged sleep
     do not remove it;
stand on dawns cliff and wait for it,
    and hurl it to the rocks below,
          yet still it comes;
lose him in drink and boredom,
place a thick shadow of thinking
about nothing whatsoever, and yet
the dead shadow rises up
between his hand and the bread
he reaches for. The skeleton’s lips
come in between him and anyone
he intends to caress. The crime
has a life of it own and the dead
are its haggard puppets. Eyes shut,
the unsinkable specter flashes on
no matter how dark the room.

 

***

A cruel cross-bow extends across the heavens,
and we are all of us its target. The flying bolt
aims one day for this man, the next
for another. The winner has no respite
when, seeing another fall, he knows
another arrow will soon descend.
His heart feels death
     before the arrow takes him;
he fears the event
    of which he is the minister.

Each coming hour tolls
     with a dull series
          of sinister thuds —
does one know his penultimate
moment when it comes? —

should he hurry on, or wait,
for, quickening his pace,
does he go anyway to meet the arrow
at the point of its fated descent?
Oh, yes, he has his Victory.
     It walls him in.

 

One day in his turn, caught up
in the trap of things he made,
he shall run for his life
amid an esplanade of turned backs,
    a slide of spit, fists raised
          against him, the flags
that hailed him torn now
to pad a flaming torch.
They will tell him, “Go!”
He will cross the border by night,
evading the wax-sealed warrant,
and stumbling from the forest
find only one door open — mine!

 

***

 

To the useless thinker
     dreams come, and in
those dreams, truth trumpets out:
No one is guilty.

Only from such a dark and plummeting vision
can we glimpse what truly lies

at the bottom of the human abyss.

 

The next century up
     will not be a pretty one.

It rumbles and swells in stinging vats
the way lava foams at the mouths of Vesuvius.

Who is behind this chaos?
     Who wishes Man so much ill?
I cannot pretend to know —
no one is up there handing out tablets.

Thunderbolts roar, eagles fly by;

 

everything we saw in this Terrible Year
was done between the claws of unknown,
     hideous, and necessary scourges;
they rushed like a flock of birds.
The heart’s deep blood,
     down to the marrow of the bones,
the whole of mankind trembled
as the dark swarm of new facts
    (the shock-news of deeds and actions)
split open the clouds
     and vomited disasters.

 

And as all the calamities fell
     upon our battered brows,
we recognized the evil
     from which we suffer,
the formidable mass of all the poor,

     the penned-in, downtrodden ones
let their appetites roar out.
Yet some of us thought:
if there is something they merely wish for,
let them strive on, and hear them out
— they will tire of it — distractions
are easy to arrange, and holidays —
it if occurred to anyone
that they howled from starvation,
that thought was soon put aside.

Haven’t we all suffered enough?

 

So what really happened
     during this incredible time?

The furious shocks we could all see and hear;
     the subtle venoms ran underground.

Why did these winds blow? Where did they come from?

Why these jets of flame
     that keep on crushing the huddled crowd?

Why did we suddenly perceive
     the gulf that separated low from high?

Crimes were committed, senseless and violent:

     yet we are innocent.

 

Revolutions sometimes shed blood,

and when their will to win is unleashed,

their formidable passion surmounts all reason
and flaming rampant,
cannot be distinguished from hatred.

 

Let us maintain, let us maintain
     the sacred principles;
but when hearts are led astray by a tempest,
when they blow on us like ashes,
      to the depths of the dark problem
          we must know how to come back down.

Man suffers, the bottomless abyss
acts as though it had a will
of its own; the hurricanes themselves
are the true scoundrels,
     the only true criminals.

 

Is the drunkard permitted a stay
     if he does not remember things said,
things done in the heat of insult and passion?
What of the citizen turned madman
    who comes to his senses
          amid the carnage
to find his knife-hand in a brother’s heart?

 

Can we banish the storm that pulled us under
to its own Devil’s Island? Should we all go off
to the jungles of Guyana
     until our brains cool down?

No, we are better than this. Hyenas have not
possessed us. Our neighbors have not
been transformed into cannibals or bandits.
It is not a matter of weaker wills
    against strong ones. The fury
of one fatal wind can carry us all away
and tear away the anchor of human conscience.

 

Does the man whom the wild sea shook

get charged for the flood that toyed with him?

Can one be both the vulture and the prey?

Although I think I know what struck us,

although I feel merciful towards the unknown,

I say now, that we must accuse facts only.

Facts are what they are;
     the judgment of history
     an implacable engine
          that nothing disconcerts.

 

But should we therefore fear the future?

Of course, we have to consider.
     Trembling does us no good.

Be sure of it: this curtain of destiny

thickened by enigma, this deformed ocean

where the human soul floats,

the vast obscurity of the whole phenomenon,

this world in need of a child
     whose crayons sketch out
          the way through chaos,

these ideals we held aloft
     that came back to us as scourges,

these riots that issued forth with song
     that always miss their purpose,

all this terror, yes, out of a kernel of hope.

 

The frosty morning dismays the horizon;

sometimes the day begins

with such a chill

that the rising sun seems like a dark attack.

 

A flower is suspended there,
     the stinging thorn, its price.
Amid blue mountaintops I tread
     on a path of anguish.
Does not all life begin
     by tearing open someone’s
belly?  The best we can know
     is august suffering.

Each wave of the unknown
confuses with its livid tint;
only much later, as though
a series of veils had lifted

comes clarity. And what it shows
seems some arcane geometry
a thousand times folded in.
All things, all places, and all
at one time, astonishing!
Yet it is hideous to see
beneath the shadows of the present,
the evils of tomorrow
     already pregnant there.
One dreads the coming day,
     a superhuman Hell.

 

Down in some wormhole obscure,
something wicked germinates.
Rising, it will lure the young,
     appalling their parents.
Its terrifying night will blot
the azure sky above, as rays
emit from the darkly glowing egg.

 

Oh, doom I see! This gloomy larva
     will grow its own wings,
a barely-visible specter
     in the depth of eternal shadow.

 

Tomorrow is that black embryo
    curled up inside Today.
I dread it even as I know
     it has no choice but to be.
It crawls at first. It waits
     for its wings to form.

Scant need of them, it seems,
     for it has the power to hover there,
a horror to look upon,
    formless and blind and awful,
biding its time
     for a dawn of apotheosis.

 

The Future is a monster.
Who knows, but from its fire
and disaster, an archangel
will at last reveal itself?