The Toco Plat: 1954 to 1956

Lyrics

Before the grid.
Before the ranches.
Just the slow contour of a DeKalb County hill.
Red clay sleeping under broom sedge.

Then, the tripod. A brass transit theodolite, winking in the August sun of 1954.
A man in a white shirt unrolls a tube of paper on the hood of a Ford F-100.
The lines are clean. Black ink on stiff paper.
Sheridan Road. Eldorado Lane. Biltmore Drive.
A name for every curve we will cut into the earth.
The stakes go in, small flags of orange plastic tied to their tops.

This is the plat.
A promise made in two dimensions.
A future for the GIs, a quarter-acre plot.
Small houses, walking distance to a market that isn't there yet.
The lines on the paper are a prayer for families.
The grid on the hill is a quiet machine for living.

By July 1955, the air smells of fresh-cut pine and diesel.
Ninety-four degrees at noon and not a single tree for shade.
The foundations are poured, concrete squares waiting for walls.
I search the county records. No names for the crew. No names for the farmer who sold the land.
Just the neat, cursive signature of the county surveyor.
A ghost hand drawing a neighborhood.

This is the plat.
A promise made in two dimensions.
A future for the GIs, a quarter-acre plot.
Small houses, walking distance to a market that isn't there yet.
The lines on the paper are a prayer for families.
The grid on the hill is a quiet machine for living.

And here, on one map from DeKalb, a strange note.
A small street stub, ending in nothing.
Labeled in faint pencil: "future kosher market access."
A road to a future nobody had ordered yet.
A path for a people who were not yet here.
A line drawn for a different kind of walking.

1956.
The last nail is driven. The paint is dry.
The streets are empty asphalt, curing in the sun.
The grid waits.
The little brick houses wait for the lights to come on.