Blue Ladder by Sharon Dolin

Blue Ladder, by Ellen Wiener. Contemporary. Click image for site.

    
Blue Ladder  (9 a.m.)

Profusion as a way to
               climb down into the flowers
                               Only the tree stands its ground
                                in the background »   stones line
                the dreamed-of path
dis/closed to me
                while my eye confuses itself
                                with blooming
                                                                  This is the third hour of the morning
                                where we breathe our way up
                 into an apex of light  
Blue celestial ladder
                 overgrown with plants marks the place
                                inside the day where we may enter
                                the primordial tree »    sleepy transiting
                between levels
                                                 If Jacob’s ladder led to angels going up
and coming down while he slept on a stone
             the missing rungs to this song
                            thrust me back into this world
                            No one moves between messenger
              and the next prayer
Inside this hour I awaken
                to a wingèd transparency
                                struggling up
                                inside the tree’s bole
                 passion leaves bursting through the rungs
And the fruit is always invisible to the root

Sharon Dolin

This poem is from Sharon Dolin's Manual for Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016).

Sharon Dolin is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Manual for Living (2016), her ekphrastic collection Serious Pink (2015 reissue), Whirlwind (2012), and Burn and Dodge (2008), which won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. She directs the Center for Book Arts Annual Poetry Chapbook Competition. Since 2014, she directs and teaches in the international writing workshop, Writing About Art in Barcelona. www.sharondolin.com