Dream d3597-s: Thumb-Deep by the Wall

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where soft daylight lay across the orchard track and a figure worked at the far end, near where the stone wall turned and cast its shadow over a strip of bare ground.

The basket sat at the figure's knee, angled so the handle pressed against the wall's base. The seed apples were small and greenish, each with the faint mark of where it had hung on its branch. I watched from the track while the figure reached into the basket, turned an apple in both hands, and pressed a thumb along the crease until the skin split and the seeds came loose in a cluster, four or five at a time, and were set into the soil.

The figure worked with a short dowel, making a hole no deeper than a thumb's length, pressing each seed down, closing the soil over it with the heel of a palm. The work was quiet and unhurried. The basket tilted slightly as the count inside it fell.

No one brought instructions. The figure did not look up or check anything written. The bare strip beside the wall received each seed in its own small dark, and the soil closed over it the same way it closed over anything placed there, without ceremony, without keeping track.

A blackbird crossed from one apple tree to another, low over the track. It landed on the wall above the bare bed and stood for a moment, looking down, then flew on.

I moved no closer. There was nothing to correct, nothing to add. The work was already underway and would finish on its own terms.

By the time I turned to leave, the figure had reached the far corner of the strip and the basket sat flat on the ground, its handle touching the wall. The soil looked like all the other soil near it, except for the faint row of closed holes that would mean nothing to anyone passing and everything to the spring.

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