We enter the sukah and invite the ancient ushpizin.

Our hearts are full like the harvest moon,

A chair in one corner covered with white silk

For these exalted guests.

A vase of day lilies rests on the table.

Overhead the sky is inky blue.

We see the stars

Through the canopy of evergreen boughs.

We were dancers with lighted torches in our hands

Musicians playing the lyre, trumpet, and cymbals

Singing songs and rejoicing

In the "water-drawing" from the pool of Shiloach.

Now we live in a less ecstatic rime

Of human bombs and scorched earth.

Still we invite our exalted guests.

Abraham brings with him loving-kindness,

Isaac unshakable equilibrium

And Jacob enters with the cloud of glory.

We were jugglers

Flipping fire torches into the night air

Everywhere the sound of water

As clear and as bright as the stars.

Moses and Aaron, loyal shepherds

Arrive to teach the blueprint of creation.

May our children grow like the fruits of Joseph

Who stands here tall and straight like the palm branch,

Joseph, interpreter of dreams, of the crisscrossing

Of actions and their consequences. …