Let Winter be praised with serious unseriousness, for we are perpetual students at the Hilson School of Vagrant Poetics, and Winter has sheltered us as we wander like foxes through her hidden assarts & her semifictional stretchers.1
Let Winter be praised as she is utterly variable & veering, sloppy & imprecise, because she is always determined not to merely impress but to be whatever.
Let Winter be praised for letting us flourish within her clear air, & flourish too within her turbid air, both of which we have learned to love as they are.
Let Winter be praised as she tells us how to survive her severest blasts unabased, creeping in & hiding where we shall not be found, then switching and leaping out fully formed, like her sunshine.
Winter’s praise is due as she is a paradise of painters, unshowy & subtle, without monetary value or sentimental tone.
Winter’s praise is due as she is unmarred by any wounds of loveliness, but dapples from sublime squalor to a killing perfection however she fancies.
Winter’s praise is due to her bold & childlike inconsistencies, which catch her enemies unawares as their calculations must lead them astray like a roped line of absurd climbers ready for the avalanche.
Winter’s praise is due like the smoke ascending from our thin fire of faggots, passing out & fading into her fertile void.
1 and the merry organs? as we choose