(In honor of all the writers who got judged after they died. To judge is to evaluate another’s worth…..may you evaluate as you would wish to be!)

Did something a little different today
Actually wrote, actually played, and noticed
Three new types of birds I did not know
In my neighborhood.
And the old lady tryin’ to get to her car next door.
Finally, got her name! At the same time,
Thought about old Flannery O’Connor dying so young
After barely starting to say what she was saying
(“Our most promising writer”, they said when she was alive)
To hum what she was humming under her breath
And choosing to bring it to light and speak it without fright.
That is to write.
And how, after death, everyone critiques you more-
How we presume to re-write another’s tombstone so blitely-
Because they couldn’t to your face. Thought of her face
The birds, death and writing, and all the stories we all really are inside.
Made me sigh with the baby cardinals, owls and these new strangers, and those others I don’t rightly
Know yet, but prayerfully will one day. Made me think of Robert Bly, Galway Kinnell, and the other writers
I met who were, or turned out to be, what they seemed to be. At least to me.
Made me want to live on a peacock farm and take the risk of words, with
The prophet Amos, who wrote exactly what he saw, even, if later, others
saw it differently-or in his case, you might get killed by people who imagine themselves to be priest. That is, it made me want to be me.
And for that, I thank the Day-light on our words and writers- and those who shed light in play,
In dark times through words which keep causing trouble
For us all.
It’s easy to criticize the dead, and hard to love the living,
I suppose, but what if the judgement was just to take the risk
Of saying so. Be careful how you evaluate, your neighbor,
She might say. Even if they are just writing and staring at new birds all Day.
In the alleyways of the dead.
She was a priest and perhaps a prophet.
Be careful how you bury the prophets
Especially those who took the time to write it down for us.