Jacob's Ladder

Having helped Jacob steal his brother’s birthright, Rivka worries that Esau will take revenge, and she schemes to have Jacob sent away from home to look for a wife. On this journey, Jacob lays down to sleep on a stone and has the famous vision of a ladder with its top reaching to heaven. When he wakens from this dream, he cries, “Truly, G-d is in this place, and I did not know it” (Genesis 28:16).

Any stone where you have rested your head
might be the boulder rolled across the gate
to heaven. Any morning you might feel
G-d’s healing finger in a ray of sun
reaching beneath your shirt to touch your heart.
Today might be the day you hear a summons
in the whistle of the thrush. Look,
this plant becomes Jacob’s Ladder;
its even rows of variegated leaves,
the stairs; and the blue, bell-shaped flowers,
the skirts of angels ascending and descending.