The Last Poem


The Keeping

The poet looked around himself, up at the high walls made of chairs, tables, made of the streets and the cafés. He looked around himself and took everything in, for he knew well that it was the last time that he could do so. He looked straight ahead then, into the second wall, the one he could not escape, the wall of muskets.

He lifted his face fearlessly, his eyes without a trace of fright or apprehension. His hand went clenched to his heart. His voice steady and clear, he called, "Vive la future! Vive la France!"

At that moment the guns were fired, and the poet choked as blood poured from his body to the streets he had helped to defend. He fell to those same streets and felt himself aching, but made no move to struggle to his feet, for he would never rise again.

Softly, his voice as failing as his strength, he murmured, "My poem..." Then he closed his eyes, and let himself drift away, his spirit free.

~~~

"Vive la Republique!"

The leader watched with strange calm as the drunkard crossed the room and stood beside him. He looked down at the man and his eyes softened.

He was unwounded but still blood-spattered, and he held himself royally, face proud and even more beautiful than when he stood beside his flag. He glowed with his power, and was intimidating to both the men who dared to extinguish his flame and the man who dared to share the pain of extinguishing.

The drunkard looked up to him, fearful of the radiance, but yet with a great trust and hope. He, too, was unwounded, but this was because he had not fought. He took a deep breath and faced back to the men.

"Kill two birds with one stone!"

Then his gaze returned to the leader. Gently, timidly, he asked him, "If you don't mind?"

The leader smiled. The smile caused his glow to become even stronger, his person to light up, his spirit to become frightening and more than human.

His hand sought the other man's and he held it, but even as he did so, the hand not taken crept to his pocket and closed upon a paper that contained twenty-four lines written with black ink and curling careful handwriting.

His lips began to form the few words, "I keep it, Jehan," but as they did, the shots rang out. He fell against the wall, and felt blood running down from his throat, from his chest, covering him, creeping into his pockets and the folds in his shirt. He felt the blood that had run in him for twenty-two years leaving him. He felt the life that had sustained him for twenty-two years dying. He felt the man who had stood beside him for only a few minutes, only a little while, collapsing at his feet. A single tear spilled down his cheek, leaving a trail.

And then his hand felt the wet redness consuming his paper, felt it tear. He felt the words that the poet had given him and his love dissolving in his own crimson life.

He felt all these things in suddenness, in little time, and he felt also that it was over, that all his dreams and his hopes, that all of the things that had given him this power, that everything he had believed in and inspired, that the cause he had given his life to, were over.

Still he felt no sorrow, nothing, but a mysterious sort of satisfaction. His fingers, nearly lifeless, touched the ruined pieces of what was once a poem that no one would now read. Now it belonged solely to him and to his Patria. Now the last poem was gone, but kept forever.


Back to the Index.