a reckoning

and all the while
as winter held its breath
I never knew

never realized that you had tucked
a thousand papery bulbs
into the patient soil or that we too

would hold our breath
until the thaw
began to take effect

and how I’d come to understand
that breath that’s held too long
can be as perilous as permafrost

yet once exhaled
can make a spring time
reckoning come true