Odes to Toco Hills · Track 13 · middle

The Sukkot in the Backyard

Sukkot in Toco Hills — every October the backyard sukkahs go up, the prefab walls of the temporary booths, the palm-frond roofs, the families eating dinner under the stars for a week, the kids running between sukkahs across the neighborhood. The community celebration that takes over the streets. Orikusis in the sukkah.

Lyrics

October. The air gets thin over LaVista Road.
A new sound in the afternoon.
Not lawnmowers, not leaf blowers.
The snap and click of aluminum poles.

They come out of the crawlspaces, from behind the water heaters.
Where the civil defense pamphlets from 1956 have long since turned to dust.
The rolled canvas walls, the vinyl panels with their clear plastic windows.
The instructions are faded, but the hands remember the sequence.
The zip ties are new every year.

And for seven nights, the backyards disappear.
They become one long, open room from Sheridan Drive to the creek.
A patchwork of temporary walls.
Schach roof of palm fronds, a hole poked in the ceiling of the world.
To let the DeKalb County stars look in.
This is Sukkot in the split-level lots.

The good plastic table, brought out onto the uneven grass.
A folding chair wobbles on a hidden root of a fifty-year-old oak.
The smell of grilled chicken from two doors down.
Mrs. Adler's cholent, mixing with the damp Georgia clay.
At dusk, the string lights click on, one by one, a constellation of small suns.

And for seven nights, the backyards disappear.
They become one long, open room from Sheridan Drive to the creek.
A patchwork of temporary walls.
Schach roof of palm fronds, a hole poked in the ceiling of the world.
To let the DeKalb County stars look in.
This is Sukkot in the split-level lots.

The children understand the new geography best.
They treat the property lines as a polite suggestion.
A flash of a blue dress through the Hendersons' azaleas.
Headed for the Goldsteins' sukkah, where the cookies are better.
They run a ghost-map over the neighborhood.
A single, permeable membrane of celebration.
Mr. Henderson just waves from his porch.

Later, the quiet talk under the single bulb.
The etrog, safe in its cushioned box on the sideboard, back inside.
These flimsy walls, a comfort.
Leaning against the permanent brick of a house built for returning GIs.
A planned community, planning for remembrance.
The wandering, made stationary.
For a week.

Just the sound of voices.
And silverware on paper plates.
Carried on the cool night air.
Through the gaps in the leaves.
Through the walls that are not quite walls. 
Good night. 
Good night.