Syndicaat Mondiale degli Stagioni
4 Vivaldi Drive
Central City, Uqbar ORB3
Attention: Most Hon. Caliph Winter
Dear Winter,
I write from your familiar haunt of New York City where, as you know, your recent prolonged local residence was the topic of much regional discussion.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to be said for chipper-faced chilled children fresh from running and leaping over poised, quiet land, and for the splendid convoluted silence of falling snow; a mug of steaming cider or mulled wine turns the dark a magical color, one that goes beyond the eyes and deep into the heart. When the ground turns in with cold ahead all the world is sere and stunned, clasping life in itself against a season of sweeping exposure. There are wisdoms there as bracing and kind as any I have ever known. Cycles, circles, decline and rebirth: this is all taken, and appreciated.
I side with the Bard, with some sympathy, when he writes,
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference; as, the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
That being said, however, and with the temperature outside edging up into the 80′s today, I can only add the following:
Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
Love, Linus