The Serpent in the Garden I Tended

I have maintained a garden for years — this garden exists only in my dreams, it has appeared perhaps forty times over the decades. Last night something was different. A large serpent was moving through it, quite slowly, and I was not frightened. I have always been frightened of snakes in waking life. The serpent paused at a fruit tree I had planted long ago and looked at me. Not threateningly. Almost as if it had been waiting. I knelt down beside it. It coiled loosely around my arm and it was cool and dry and completely calm. I woke with an extraordinary feeling of completion.