Those who do not remember the past
are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana
When the homes of dissenting
professors are mapped, and
Victor Hugo dreams of an arrow
of seven geese pointing toward
the tilted crescent barely discernible
in the sky above Nanterre,
we will wish we had said No.
When, in the wreckage of time,
beneath a smoke-clotted film
of unbalanced light, enough
human life is spilled into French
fields (where, years later,
expatriot gentians begin to grow),
we will wish we had said No.
When cities are scoured by wind,
slicing through concrete layers,
to the bone echoes of train-platform
scenes invisible to all but silent
security cameras and roaming
packs of dumpster-fed dogs,
we will wish we had said No.
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: George Luks, Verdun, France (ca. 1915),
watercolor on paper, via Wikimedia Commons
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