Well it made my day to have such an effect on your day and to read your kind words. Thank you. I will try to publish more poems. I have dozens and dozens that no one has seen.

I wrote the poem after leaving a bar meeting where I heard a distressing speech about budget cuts to the courts by a Federal Judge who happened to reside in my case against Exxon for poisoning air and water with Coal waste. We lost in front of Judge Murphy who was the mighty King and in front of the Federal Appeals Court in Chicago where the famous mighty King Judge Posner resided with two women who also could not allow a case to go forward; that is what Reagan appointees and most federal courts do now- they foreclose plaintiffs from going forward at all- no trials to see what the defendant corporations have done to harm people or violate the law.

I did not know Judge Murphy well at the time I wrote the poem but saw his genuine distress over the budget cuts affecting his ability to do justice. After the Exxon case where justice was not served well, I made an appointment with him and read him the poem and gave him a copy and told him he inspired it. He told me of his days in the Vietnam war and we had a nice moment. I was glad he had things he cared about.

Even so, I was definitely the angel earning my wings- not Judge Murphy, who was definitely the mighty King. At one hearing I asked for help in discovery. Exxon gave me nearly 500 boxes to go through at their offices while being watched by a paralegal. I told him that just as David had to call on a higher power to defeat Goliath that I needed his help to get the discovery to be fair. He told me that I did not look like a shepherd boy and that he had never been confused with the God of the Jews.

We shall all earn our wings!!!