Sign

Sign Echoing yet with the ache of old time, the past returns in dreams; what we did or said or saw comes back as mythic sign of something still to come. It might be benign— or foretell a grotesque fate instead, as echo and portent of the ache of time. Sometimes I've dreamed in words, retrieved a line or image from my sleep: A woman, long dead, whom I once knew appeared, a haunting sign when she returned in dream, began to climb an apple tree beside the house where we once shared a bed. We had eaten the fruit and felt the ache of time. She returned. She spoke. Was there a design? Her face wore all the sorrow time had bred, though still she spoke of love. Was this a sign? The past returns—more than we want at times; at times, less than we sometimes feel we need to salve the mortal ache of passing time, to give us what we sorely need, a sign. —Eric Trethewey 101 ...