Holy Days

H
Holy the days of the prune face junkie men
Holy the scag pumped arms
Holy the Harlem faces
looking for space in the dead rock valleys of the City

Holy the flowers
sing holy for the raped holidays
and Bessie’s guts spilling on the Mississippi
road

Sing holy for all of the faces that inched
toward freedom, followed the North Star
like Harriet and Douglass

Sing holy for all our singers and sinners
for all the shapes and forms
of our liberation

Holy, holy, holy for the midnight hassles
for the gods of our Ancestors bellowing
sunsets and blues that gave us vision

O god make us strong and ready

Holy, holy, holy for the day we dig ourselves
and rise in the sun of our own peace and place
and space, yes Lord.


1969/70

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