At the trial of Betty K.
In another context
he might have been mistaken for
her grandson,
the strapping young detective
who testified
without a hint of shame –
at Betty Krawczyk’s trial.
He said he arrested Betty
and carried her to his car
from the road
where she was seated,
protecting an ancient forest
with her small body.
Like hers, his handsome face is
underscored by force of character
so that,
even from the gallery,
one is compelled by
a sense of his nature –
not unkind –
and the underlying spirit.
He said she was polite (of course)
and made a few points
from the back seat of his cruiser
to which (of course) he did not respond.
I can see her now,
explaining the justness of her cause
passionately, within a cosmic framework,
in her gentle Louisiana lilt,
on the off chance that her
captor might actually listen
and learn something.
Well, you never do know
till you try.
And then,
in a prescient moment,
might he have stopped the car,
unlocked the back door,
and unfastened her handcuffs?
And then, offering a hand to lean on,
helped her out?
Might he have kissed her cheek
with the caring of a disciple
or a grandson
and sent her on her way?
(from Wildflowers at my doorstep, Karma Press, 2008)
Betty Krawczyk has got to be a headache for the BC court system. No matter how many times they throw her in prison — eight times — she won’t stop fighting her cause through appeals and protest. And because her cause is pure-hearted environmentalism, and because she’s a stately 82 year-old great-grandmother with a razor-sharp mind and a star-studded social/political network that fills courtrooms, she just makes the system look…bad.
Wednesday, Betty was back at the Court of Appeal to argue that the ten month sentence she served in 2006-2007 for breaking a court injunction to protest the bulldozing of Eagleridge Bluffs to allow for the expansion of the Sea to Sky Highway was unjust. Acting in her own defense, she argued that the use of a summary trial – a truncated version of a trial — is a “foolproof method” for shutting down environmental activists, because it eclipses the possibility of a jury trial and the use of the Criminal Code or the Charter.
Betty is no anarchist, but a devotee of the law, despite the fact that the law does not seem to have served her in recent years.
“I actually respect the law more than most people do,” says Betty. “I was raised in Louisiana, where the Ku Klux Klan roamed the land, [and there was no law against it]. But the law has got to serve the people…who else is it going to serve?”
For an incisive look at the political angles of this story, see http://creekside1.blogspot.com/.