Shelters Of Peace

As wanderers in the desert, the Israelites erected sukkot,
small harvest huts for the autumn ingathering.
These huts were shelters of peace, canopies of safety;
fragile sanctuaries for a nomadic ancestral village.
Places where sojourning ceased and
celebrating the Four Species began;
where families feasted with strangers,
star-gazed through roofs made of corn stalks and
slept for seven nights with their spines, like a palm branch,
nuzzled against the energies of the earth.

* * *

Overlooking the Pasznoskiego tram stop,
an artist built a sukkah on her apartment balcony.
A roof of fine twigs held together with strings of light arched over
gourds and pumpkins, flowers and spices,
soft bundled bodies with songs for the festival.
We dwelt there nightly with tea and wine, blueberry pierogis,
brussel sprouts boiled on the stove.
Flame-flickered shadows danced on our skin;
hot wax dripped onto the pages of a prayer book,
into the fibers of our socks.
We saw the stars.

Tucked inside a pocket of the world that carries
love in art and art in action,
we, too, are wanderers
lingering in the comfort of temporary space
honoring the past with the magic of presence;
open hearts in exile.

Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha.
"Spread over us a shelter of peace."