Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.” — Genesis 28:16

In the paradise
dream I wasn’t a ghost, I
was watching from the shade
under a dry tree — casual
as that now seems —
the sky

opening not in a storm
but in a fury of violets.
And below, the pitch, the red
wings of monsters, the dark loam
and thunder in my ribs,
and in eyes gold
heels ascending a ladder.
The robes of angels.
Into a fury of heavenly flowers.
When I awoke the red earth
in a light of its own
making —