Judi
Bari Web Site of the Redwood Summer Justice ProjectJudi
Bari Web Site of the Redwood Summer Justice Project
by Robin Rule © 1997
I
You move to this little cabin in the woods
to heal, raise children and build everything
from windows to a movement of women
who save trees and embarrass a nation.
The neighbors like you. Newspapers rarely do,
but editors can't see the poetry
of bright-colored yarn tangled in chainsaws
in the sudden quiet of a forest.
You're planning the biggest lunch break of all time.
XIX
Look, just rest and let Alicia sing you
old folk and labor tunes until you sleep,
while Tanya excavates this huge mountain
of paperwork and gets on with suing
the fucking FBI to clear your name;
let your kids know the cops lied through their teeth
when they arrested you in the hospital.
Right now, the creek is singing your name and
fish are leaping with truth grinning through their teeth
XXIII
We walk to door to pay our last respects;
give last kiss, tangle fingers in her hair...
Alicia, all hot tears, holds me and points
to the ancient pine twenty feet away:
She's sitting right there, she says with big eyes.
I go home to the dog who whimpers and yips,
following Judi all over the valley...
I laugh, cry, recite Kaddish for women;
change the words to encompass the whole world.
Epilogue: May 24, 1990
North American Muse Gets Arrested
The woman brave enought to sit in the crotch of trees
got hers blown up yesterday.
She wears the mask of North America with power
enough to scare the D.A.'s office, the timber industry,
the FBI and a whole lot of stock holders.
It began raining yesterday, falling
on the woman in the hospital,
who whispers, Timber
Like Gaia pulling the wind through trees,
this woman who pulls the bow across her violin
is alive and precious, like rain in drought
* * *
(And as long as the movement stays alive, so will Judi Bari)
Robin Rule
String Creek Road
Willits, California
Spring 1990 - Spring 1997
Robin Rule's book The String Creek Saga, 1990-1997 (ISBN-1-879082-X) is published by Rainy Day Women Press, P.O. Box 1085, Willits CA 95490. Copies are available for $5.00, plus $2.00 for mailing.
To be placed on the mailing list to receive updates on Judi Bari's lawsuit against the FBI, or to make a tax deductible contribution to help fund the lawsuit, please contact:
4/23/97