“Relent, O Lord! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with your mercy,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
May the beauty of the Eternal our God rest upon us;
and establish the work of our hands for us –
Yes, establish the work of our hands.”
– Psalm 90
This is the Year (2020 / 5781)
And this is in fact the year that our apocalypse begun
This is the year the veil has been ripped from off our eyes
The year the sound of truth breaks through the endless din of lies
This is the year the souls of those we love who have been taken
form a spirit legion pushing all the living to awaken
This is the year the sick and weak become our strongest fighters
in the struggle for a vision of a world set to rights
And this is in fact the year thousands of squatters will take over
houses from the big developers, who themselves are the true homeless
For anywhere we lay our heads becomes a kind of home
as anywhere we share our love we find a sweet oasis
It is written:
As they pass through the dry valley of Baca,
it becomes a place of springs, the autumn rain fills it with pools 1
But those who serve the gods of property have not a homeland
who turn the fertile valleys into deserts for their gain
God sets the lonely in families,
leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the wicked live in a sun-scorched land 2
and mock God openly with lies and climate change denial
while the seas fill up with hurricanes and the west coast drowns in flames
This is the year that everything collapsed / and in its ruin
The people rose to pose the problem / being truly human
From Kenosha to Atlanta to the ravaged streets of Portland
The God of Moses coursed through us to liberate this poor land
This is the year that poems become riots and vice versa
The year we see our warriors have always been our nurses
This is the year that Black Lives Matter more than high end stores
and the year the people realize we've always been at war
And the officers with consciences see how they must resign
or plan to kill more innocents while openly aligning
with the ones who prey on children / practice human sacrifice
O, this is a year too terrible for any poet to write
And this is a year no novelist could properly describe
And a year that no comedian could fully satirize
For there's nothing more ironic or more twisted than the truth
When Reality TV is our new form of fascist rule
This is the year the king gave his most eloquent abuses
On July 4th from the feet of the Black Hills carved into faces
This is the year the genocide reserved once for the Natives
Turns against the mass of people who are running out of savings
O God, do not remain silent;
do not turn a deaf ear,
be not still, O God!
See how your enemies roar,
how your foes rear their heads.
With cunning they conspire against your people;
they plot against those you cherish.
“Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation.” 3
Yes, this is the year of our worst fears / deeper each morning
And this is the year no theory guides / but scriptures give us warning
How the wicked stop at nothing to take everything they can
How their words become a noxious spell that spreads throughout the land
Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth. 4
But this is the year the psalmists and the prophets did predict
When they spoke of the abundance and the downfall of the wicked
This is the year their statues start to vanish overnight
as the angels of rebellion bring God's world into sight
And the bronze that formed the likenesses of slave-trade profiteers
will be wound around the strings guitarists strum year after year
as they sing the stories of these times with imagery so vivid
like Asaph in David's choir, who wrote these words of the wicked:
Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away...
They are like a dream when one awakes;
and so when you arise, O Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies. 5
This is the year the floodwaters of centuries burst forth
and the bloody rivers of our history pour back to their source
This is the year the Lakota set up check points at the Rez
to make it clear they are a people who won't be massacred again
This is the year the fires of our dignity ignite
despite the armies of their fear / This year day breaks the night
Look! Our God is coming out of hiding,
coming down and treading on the high places of the earth!
The mountains melt beneath and the valleys split apart,
like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope. 6
This is the year
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low 7
This is the year
The Eternal law comes forth from our dear cities
and from the land the Spirit speaks
to settle all the bitterness of man
This is the year
They will hammer their swords into plowshares
and their spears into sickles
Nation will not lift up sword against nation
nor study war ever again 8
This is the year of all these things
And every year to come, we'll sing:
O God, when you led your people,
when you marched across the chaos,
the earth shook, and the sky poured down rain
at of the coming of the God of Justice,
the coming of the God of Freedom,
You caused abundant rain to fall
and restored your worn-out world,
and your people made a home there;
from your bounty you provided for the poor.
1Ps. 84:6
2Ps. 68:6
3Ps. 83:1-4
4Ps. 73:9
5Ps. 73:18-20
6Mic. 1:3-4
7Isa. 40:4
8Isa. 2:3-4
9Ps. 68-:7-10
