— The Dream in the Pit

A robe of many colors
catching the Canaan light,
seventeen years old,
not yet knowing
what a dream can cost.

*

A father’s love, unevenly poured,
like wine served to one guest
while the rest wait thirsty.

The brothers saw.
They could not speak peace.

*

Sheaves bowing in the field.
Sun, moon, eleven stars
bowing in the night.

A dream can be worn
like the robe,
or kept like a pearl
inside the shell.

Jacob kept it in his heart.
Joseph was still learning which.

*

“What are you seeking?”
a stranger asks in the field.

“I am seeking my brothers.”

The oldest question of the soul,
asked by a boy
lost near Shechem.

*

“Here comes the dreamer.”
A name made into a stone.

They strip the robe.
They throw him into a dry pit.
No water.
Only walls.

He dreamed of stars.
Now he sees one circle of sky.

*

Above him,
the sound of bread being broken.

Then spices, balm, myrrh
on the road to Egypt,
and twenty pieces of silver
for a brother.

*

A goat’s blood on the robe.
“My son’s robe.”
Jacob tears his clothes
and refuses comfort.

*

The chapter ends
with no stars,
only a caravan
going down.

But I have learned,
looking back on my own long road,
that the Beloved sometimes hides
the open door
in the shape of a pit,

and the seed
must be buried in the dark
before it remembers
it was always a tree.

*

Somewhere past the walls
he could not see,
the dream
was still breathing.