10 Elul: The earth is crying

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.

Cantor Vera Broekhuysen has served Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley as its cantor since 2023. She experiences the outdoors as a formative source and nurturer of her Jewish spirituality (having had her first adult conversation with God looking at Wild Goose Island in East Glacier, Montana). Cantor Vera was ordained from Hebrew College in 2016. You can learn more about Cantor Vera, including her original writings and music, at verabroekhuysen.com