You will learn in time
to stay warm at any cost
choosing the spiced tea over the floral
Doubling, tripling your socks
You’ll let the pounds settle on your hips like protective arms
and resent them later as the year turns teenaged
You’ll watch for foxes
force bulbs from their slumbers on your windowsill
desperate for color as you look out at the bleak lawn
sighing at what once thrilled you.
But what you can’t know yet
is how deeply that sigh takes root
Your white breath will hover a moment before you in the sparkling air
but scurry back quickly, craving the warmth as you do.
It will huddle down into the bed of your bones
wrap itself in your slow muscles
and wait
watching your heart dance like firelight.
Let it.
You know already that ends bring beginnings
but you will forget.
You will think the spring is a fairy tale,
won’t trust the bright green shoots that peer out in March
only to be snowed upon again.
You will weep for them.
That’s okay.
When the ice melts and your sigh
tumbles damply out again for peonies and violets
You may not see it escape this time
But you’ll know in your empty bed
the bittersweet loss that comes with every birth
every beginning.
You are good at this job now.
lynne bieber 