Echo   

 

That fourteen-year-old came to me again,

surprising me in the middle of endless tedium.
A familiar face. A well-known countenance.
She said little, as is her way,
walking with me throughout the day,
reminding me of all things known.

So little changes between fourteen and forty-one.

More similar than not, her steps matched my own,
parallel, corresponding, preparing,
but never quite intersecting.  

Designed to walk alongside,

a traveling mirror,
so all that is necessary is one quick glance,
to perceive the reverberation, to hear the echo.  

Destined to repeat,

each step becoming a mere recurrence,
a reappearance of the one who was,
ingrained and embedded,
on the parallel path,
the initial journey that never quite concludes.




                           ~~~

First published in Poem Magazine / May 2006