I know now how the faces have fallen

I
I know now how the faces have fallen,
How from under lids peeks out terror,
How cuneiform’s coarse pages are
Incised by suffering upon their cheeks,
How curls from ashen and black turn
In a single moment completely silver,
And a smile withers on defeated lips,
And in dry laughter shudders fear.
So that now I pray not for myself alone
But for all of us, who stood there with me
In the intense cold and in July’s heat
Under that red and blinded wall.


Epilogue, from Requiem, Anna Akhmatova
image:

Federal agents use crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on July 20, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. (Noah Berger / AP) 

Michelle Golberg, NY Times, July 21, 2020:
(from Timothy Snyder's book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.”) 
“Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening.