originally published in Prayers for the End of the World: Daily Prayers for Advent, Geez Magazine, 2023
I’ve included the edited published version as well as the original.
Text
In which I read the book of Joel as the world burns on live TV
God says we will be repaid for the years that the locusts have eaten
while the locusts infest the screen to prove how profitable hunger is.
Closing the fossil fuel plants will result in a lot of lost jobs (say the locusts).
The sun will be darkness and the moon will be blood (says the prophet).
If the day of the Lord is great and dreadful,
should I stop buying single-use plastics?
If our paths are the garden of Eden or a desert waste–
multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!
The status of plowshares and swords is unstable.
We beat them into different shapes depending on the year.
Could the prophets see the future or could they just
see? Our ground and our joy dry up. We cannot pray our way out–
but skinned-knee litanies conceive what a rent heart can give birth to.
The footnote says that the precise meaning of the Hebrew word used is uncertain–
but I know the locusts. I hold my breath against their wildfire-smoke swarms and
I pray my way in. I inhabit forever what fire devours. Labor pains before deliverance.
johanna e. hall 