Last night I dreamed of tulips.

There were so many of them--brash pinks and lush purples, tawdry red and demure whites, to say nothing of those playful yellows with orange stripes eager to mirror the sunrise--large ones splayed across my yoga mat and the small ones in the vase on my kitchen table.  But when had I planted all these egg-shaped cups now bursting out of my bookshelves?

I wondered this--when?--as I gazed at the bounty strewn across my bedspread and brimming in buckets on my patio.  For, true to dream logic, I knew I had planted all these blossoms in the same places they now sat.  It must have been in the fall.  That's when most bulbs get planted in gardens or books.

Yes, it was then, when I knew the earth would hold them and nurture them through the inward-turning months when they could gather themselves, absorbed the soil's nutrients, ready to take root in their own time.

And then they did, grounding themselves into the mat, the bookshelves, the kitchen table, these new ways being ready to emerge after a season of gathering.  I did not know it as it was happening; I only saw them reaching for that first sunbeam that kissed the earth on the day that winter no longer was, on the day that promised more light.  They could emerge at no other time, I realize now, except for that perfect alchemical moment when the sun and moon hang equally in the sky and I have forgotten to fret over them.

I remember now, those bulbs so carefully sown all those months ago--they are nothing but paper-thin husks surrounding the green shoots and thick stamen-ed ovals bursting with pollen. Once only small intentions, barely whispered hopes, these tulips reach for the sun before me.  All the same, I know one truth that stays with me even as I flit between dreaming and waking (who's to say which is which?): once a seed, now a blossom.