1619 Jamestown

Daryl Ross Halencak

March 4, 2021

In the year of our Lord 1607, I praise willing souls who followed 

     dreams of freedom, humanity’s potential.

I praise forefathers and mothers who searched for new heaven, 

     new earth, ripe for equality.

I praise the pearl of great price where settlers snuggled in safe beds

     for the first time.                        

Faith praises answered prayers for a new way of life, smelling fresh air, peace.

Faith found delight.

In the year of our Lord 1619, seekers of better lives, 

     spiraled into destruction, stumbled into their own type

     of tyranny.     

Slavery shackled precious human value, and 

      Puritan beliefs were compromised.

Faith without works is dead.

In the year of our Lord four centuries later,

     I cry, I scream, I am angry: 

     do ”Black Lives Matter,”

     do they “say their names,”

     do homeless folk live on streets, 

     do children live in cages? 

I question: will despair end, my dear Republic?  

Faith without works is dead.

In the year of our Lord in the future,

      I long for equality and fraternity.

I long for change anew, democracy for all.

My hymn, our refrain will sing from the highest hill:

     One Nation under God Indivisible 

    with Liberty and Justice 

    for All.

Daryl Ross Halencak is a poet and writer. His poetry was published in Dragon Poet Review, NonDoc, Cesky Dialog, Elegant Rage and Ceske Stopy. A fourth generation of Foard County, Texas, Daryl and his wife, Jane, live in the rugged and untamed land in the Rolling Plains of Texas.