#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Jill in the Pulpit

Excerpt from “How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way,” Martin Espada

Three, four, five times I snooze my alarm. Finally, force myself awake. I wanted to be out earlier. I keep my walk short. It’s the last Farm Pond Writer’s Webinar before we break for the summer. This is the end of our fifth year of writing together. Perhaps, when we resume in September, we will be able to meet in person again, at Farm Pond. The Jill in the Pulpits–I’ve decided to call them that–are still thriving, and I love their striped green. I listen to a news podcast, about the Rayshard Brooks killing by police at a Wendy’s in Atlanta while I walk. The analysis takes a detailed look at the situation, and I find myself swayed back and forth, back and forth, trying to understand what went wrong, who is to blame, why did this happen? Yes, he was apparently too drunk to be driving. Yes, he resisted arrest, stole the taser, ran away. And was shot in the back. Twice. And then, that’s as far as it goes in this news. Until the afternoon. When the policemen who shot him is charged with murder. And there is a video on the news: the policemen who shot Rayshard in the back, has reached his body, now on the ground. And he kicks him.