You Ask: Why Winter? Comments

It's seems as if your attitude to winter changes in the course of the poem - When you initially say winter gives warmth to your poems I gather you mean the reading of them is a warm and wonderful experience, perhaps shared with others, but then you start listing the hazards of winter and conclude with calling it twice almost as if you are pleading - Enough already, winter! At the end of his ODE TO THE WEST WIND, Shelley issues a prophecy: IF WINTER COMES, CAN SPRING BE FAR BEHIND? In some climates like mine YES1 VERY FAR BEHIND!

I am surprised by the sheer acceptance of winter in this poem. You do mention destructive winter storms but there is no fear or impatience expressed. But you are a denizen of the Mediterranean world. Have you ever experienced winter in a landscape as far north as my Minnesota? ? The grip of cold (bone-chilling cold!) and deluge of snow are truly relentless. But I like your poem just because it is positive about winter. In my poem A NEW LIFE STAGE SIX I put my protagonist much further north - 300 -400 miles from where I live in the south, yet he writes in a letter WINTER IS HARD, BUT NOT/WITHOUT ITS COLD DELIGHTS. Your poem is one with COLD DELIGHTS as well.