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The Robe Stays Behind

The lawyer’s arc, from the bar to the bench — and what is left when the robe comes off.

No. 1233 haiga4:55
From the curator

The lawyer’s arc, from the bar to the bench — and what is left when the robe comes off. It opens with the question every young lawyer should answer first: what is a lawyer? Then the weight of it: a license lent rather than owned, clients who can’t speak for themselves, the case that slowly becomes just a file. The middle is the cost at home — the law as the other woman, the office where no one waits, a funeral missed for a Friday at work. The title poem is the hinge: the robe stays behind, but the oath goes home with you. It ends on why lawyers matter, and on shade from a tree someone else planted.

The haiga, in order

33 haiga · as they appear in the video
  1. before you decide / you should know the answer to / what is a lawyer
  2. the weight of the law / when not shared or put down is / why lawyers burn out
  3. people used to come / here with nothing so they could / wind up with something
  4. I earned my place here / why do I still have to prove / what they take on faith
  5. the license is theirs / lent to you for a career / it was never yours
  6. you do not become / a lawyer to become rich / but not poor either
  7. who needs a lawyer? / just the ones that lack the voice / to speak for themselves
  8. I used to believe / each case was someone's life but / now it's just a file
  9. I'll just do one more / I have been saying this now / for more than five years
  10. the surgeon scrubs in / not for the hospital's sake / for what is at stake
  11. she said the law was / the other woman and she / was pretty much right
  12. I win the cases / then back to my office where / no one waits for me
  13. I only have one / I say this every evening / to no one who counts
  14. sleep is the last thing / that he wants but is the first / thing he really needs
  15. the sad thing about / divorce is that it destroys / your family's hugs
  16. I still remember / when you used to laugh that way / whenever we talked
  17. she died on thursday / I was at work on friday / who else would have gone
  18. I wish I had known / the last time I heard your voice / would be the last time
  19. the envelope came / with the weight of everything / I might have done wrong
  20. I am still winning / every argument but my / hands shake in court now
  21. the robe stays behind / but the oath goes home with you / and you sleep in it
  22. the fruit in her hands / was never meant to be mine / I planted the seeds
  23. they say grief is love / that has curdled inside you / with no place to go
  24. what is worse than death / is what dies inside of us / while we are living
  25. often the right thing / to do turns out to be the / hardest thing to do
  26. it is time to let / go of who you are so you / can become yourself
  27. reboot your life by / being the person you wish / you have always been
  28. the floor is written / the ceiling is what you are / no one drafts that part
  29. sometimes we all need / to stop and remind ourselves / why lawyers matter
  30. when the code runs out / and the courtroom is empty / you are what remains
  31. three currents, one boat / no map was made for this sea / just learn to hold course
  32. at your funeral / may they talk of who you were / not what you have done
  33. you get shade today / because someone else planted / a tree yesterday
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