‘Javert Derailed’: A Poem by Zanna Barton

Javert Derailed

—In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the police inspector Javert faces
a moral crisis when the fugitive he chased for so long saves his life

The outlines are fierce by the great river Seine,
And are sketched out in moonbeams with chalky clear white,
Where Javert stands above like a king who is bound
By dull chains in a dungeon of June’s misty night.

A king on a throne ruling cobwebs and dust,
A king who desires to know nothing more—
How the flash of gold light from a prisoner’s torch
Stings like acid to one never injured before!

The stately old oaks and the quivering aspens
Are shadows of lives and of futures unled
While the river’s soft hush is a sweet lullaby
That it sings to its waves as they rock in their bed.

But within burns a fire so bright and impossible
That only the Void can snuff out its flames—
The flames making smoke that suffocate life,
And tinsels of fire burning up his life’s frame.

Then Javert climbs to stand o’er the deep churning swells
On the railing, and surveys what cannot be seen:
All the things that are lost to the water’s black hole.
He straightens and falls like a felled evergreen.

The shadow engulfs him, a shroud for a star,
And the currents continue as if unaware,
And the jolts of the one who is slipping below
Are lost like a wind underneath daylight’s glare.