Winter in Other Countries
If I say winter is the same in every country, there are those who would accuse me of generalizing, or worse. Everybody's winter is lyrical. No two pipers play the ney the same. Every cold wind has its own bitter velocity. But if there is winter in your country, then you may know that way of burrowing inside yourself while looking at the stars in the frozen night. In the cities, you look for stars in the streetlights reflected in windows. Sometimes the stars appear over a manger. Sometimes the weather drenches your donkey. In winter, maybe the best thing to do is to curl up with your lover in blankets of love. Oh but what if you are alone? Where are your blankets of love? Why are you looking to the stars or the streetlights in the windows? You were always looking for love, but in winter it arrives, coming in from the darkness, slipping into the shadows where you slept. If there is winter in your country, I know your lovers. I see them, millions of them, their eyes reflected like streetlights in windows, their souls like the reeds cut from the reed bed, stars poured out into the night. Winter is the same here as there. The bosses go to banquets and the lovers sleep in shadows, each shade a blanket of love.