The Earth Prays

Shared by Trisha Arlin | Poem

By Trisha Arlin

Was•Is•Will Be,

The fruit fly lives a lifetime in a day and says its Shabbat prayers every half hour. 
We  get our three score and ten and we say those prayers once a week. 
The sun goes on for billions of years and we say a Birkat HaChammah on its behalf once every 28 years.
So when does the earth pray?

Once a year is the Summer Solstice, Tekufat Tammuz.

The Earth it tilts and bends its planetary knees,

It leans and shuckles towards the sun

And says an Earthly brachah.
And it’s a good one, a prayer of yearning and gratitude for light and warmth,

For the pleasures of summer and the magnificence of that tilt.
And as the planet davens, I will, too:
Was•Is•Will Be,

Before, Now and After,

This solstice morning I also gratefully bend to the sun
Precisely because it is not eternal. 
It just looks that way to us fruit flies,
Whenever the Earth prays.   Amen.