One Year Of Love Songs

To answer this prompt, I wrote a poem. The poem captures a certain theme of the Shmita Year; rest. I wrote about the Shmita Year ending, and about the pressure that comes with it. Sometimes, after a long rest, we tend to not want to work anymore and want to remain “in hibernation.” To help explain this I quoted “Braiding Sweetgrass,” a book by Robin Wall Kimmerer that explains “alternative forms of Indigenous knowledge outside of traditional scientific methodologies.” The quote I used describes weather in the context of cycles, which I thought fit perfectly in this poem. The speaker is saying that they want cold weather—they want to stay isolated. I think that loneliness and rest oftentimes do go hand-in-hand. When you’re resting, you’re lonely, because you are only accompanied by yourself and your thoughts. I think that rather than the Shmita Year being a joyous occasion, it is a sad and lonely period of time. Work helps bring people together, and helps them stay motivated. I think that a break from work would just make people even more tired than they already were.