Morning Walk, Ignorant and Free

Bennet, Brown, Bogart, Bechtel. They died during the second half of the nineteenth century. They rest before me, in the Mercer Cemetery, with its prickly spires rising heavenward. I walk along the east iron fence. Grant, Creed, Stokes, Fell. From a niche in the gate, a tall man appears. His face is obscured beneath a hood, but I can see his chin moving up and down, working the mouthpiece of a cell phone. The pitch of his voice is low and menacing.

"Oh yeah," I think. "You're inconspicuous."

He stops talking, and I suspect that he hears my thoughts. I pick up the pace and turn the corner. Ahead, three anti-abortion demonstrators stand, their backs against the north wall of the cemetery. I read one of their signs: LIFE YES, ABORTION NO. Most of the pedestrians in front of me ignore these quiet activitsts, but one man raises the middle finger of his left hand as he passes. He flaunts the finger in the faces of the demonstrators . At first, I am appalled. They are older, resolute, unphased. They could be my Mom and her fellow churchgoers. How dare this man gesture in such a way. But I soon relax, and marvel at how much of the First Amemdment has played out before my eyes. I pick up a newspaper, and redress the goverment with grievances.