Opening...

he stood as if in the valley
grown dark in the bright of day
in a chambered cavern
inside a man-made granite mountain.

Walls make steep canyons and engulf light
windows become distant portals
and cool shade disguises heat;
shimmered up from hostile ground.

"Oyez, oyez, oyez..." a flow of black
amid bustle of unexpected risings;

like a buzzing of flies, spoken truths*:
admits and denies, fluttered past.
Then twelve and true, seated;
a solemn duty placed upon them;

to a sudden-ed moment,
an arrival, a "now".

Standing before the bench
a man's fate balanced in his hands;
wits and skills in the breach
of a chasm too wide to span without wings
[he called his wiser spirits and Angels].
He suddenly saw the cloak,
that most ancient mantle of presumption,
as it draped shoulder to floor
of this one man and so too of everyman;

and standing at bar, his voice

holding a tradition of ages,
a virtue denied to so many,
but clarion clear comes the sound
from tended grounds he has made
grown strong even in the trepid moment
as thoughtful preparations surge

he braces his will and utters a beginning:

"May it please...the Court..."