A Juror's Poem
UPDATE 1/14/06: Because the YouTube audio and video were so poorly synchronized, I replaced the vlog with a feed from Audioblog.com, and it seems to work much better.
I ran into ace Denver trial attorney Greg Tiemeier yesterday at Players men's clothing store. He was buying some very colorful shirts, and I was trying on a sportscoat. Just a few days before, Greg had read about a Colorado Lawyer magazine poetry contest and remembered the poem I had written early this year after serving as a juror at one of his trials. The videoblog shows me reading "All Rise," and contains one error: the contest is being run by the state Bar Association, not the national. Being new at YouTube, I don't know how to make the audio and video synchronize any better--my apologies for the irritating delay. It will no doubt lead me to my next podcast-related purchase, a movie editing program. It never ends.
Thanks, Greg, for sending the poem on to the magazine for consideration in the contest!
ALL RISE
We the jury
turn right, step
down from our box,
walk left along
a long, smooth rail
past a coat closet,
to the door
of a tall room
with an oak table.
Everyone else
stands still—
the robed judge,
the accused optometrist,
his trim attorney,
the red-haired plaintiff
whose eyes aren’t right,
his loose-limbed lawyer,
the petite law clerk,
the woman who sits
alone in the gallery.
Except for my wedding,
I have never walked
as heedfully
as I walk
to this table
where we five strangers
conjure from the law
and our own guilty lives
a verdict,
a stumbling
toward justice.
Friday, January 13, 2006
