Day 1108, What Will Be the Cost? 

 

In three years, Trumpist fan blades, as they whirled,

Have sprayed Trump’s colon contents ‘round the world.

And, just like what the moving finger wrote, (1)

Foretell disaster from the Senate vote.

 

First, witnesses: Republicans declined

To have what Donald Trump did underlined.

No witnesses, no documents allowed;

They voted down a trial right out loud.

 

They’re leaving it for voters to decide

If we think Donald Trump should be denied

Another term because he’s such a threat

To our democracy.  So, place your bet.

 

“The moving finger writes, and having writ…” (see footnote 1)

Foretold the glowing coals on which we sit.

For we elected Trump, it is our fault;

And now the whole world suffers his assault.

 

Since we’ve not been led by a steady hand,

We’re watching chaos spread throughout the land.

What will it cost?  Recall the prophecy,

“…This night thy soul shall be required of thee…” (2)

 

(1)  From Edward Fitzgerald’s 1859 English translation from Farsi, of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.”  Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician who was also credited with writing a number of quatrains in the form of a rubaiyat.  This is a form which, in English, is in iambic pentameter and has a rhyme scheme of a, a, b, a. The quatrain from which this line is taken is:

“The moving finger writes; and having writ

“Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

“Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

“Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

 

(2)   See the Book of Luke, 12:20, King James version: “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.  Then whose shall those things be, which thou has provided?”

See also the Book of Daniel, 5: 24-29.  Here the king, Belshazzar, is told that the handwriting on the wall in his dream means that his kingdom will end, he has been found wanting, and his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians.  Belshazzar died that night.