The Earth is crying
fretful as a newborn, she
wails of hunger,
of soiled limbs,
and I hear her
as I toss and turn at night.

She demands my attention by day,
each one hotter than the last,
skin of dirt and lips both cracking
with what we’ve cooked up, we
careless caregivers.

I blink and it’s yontif
and the year’s turning too
as in humble gratitude,
in unworthy shamefaced plea,
I fall to my knees and fall on my face
and my body returns to the earth,
so that cradled by dirt
in the new year’s birth,
I too may rise
with life on my lips.

– August 2025, published on Etudes for Elul blog; series created by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen