winter

I followed your footsteps," he said, in answer to the unspoken question. "Snow makes it easy." I had been tracked, like a bear. "Sorry to make you go to all that trouble," I said. "I didn't have to go that far, really. You're about three streets over. You just kept going in loops." A really inept bear.

It hardly mattered. She was tired of waiting for him to acknowledge who he was. Tired of donning a false mask of gaiety when she was so much more__elt so much more__eneath. No one had ever noticed her mask. No one but him. If he couldn__ or wouldn__ make the first move, then damn it, she would.

I am not warm. That is why my sister chose the name Winter for me.

It looks like something out of Whittier's "Snowbound,"' Julia said. Julia could always think of things like that to say.

On that walk around the building, two sets of cops coming out stopped to tell our guys to hustle us inside so they could head back out on the road. Accidents everywhere. A pileup oneach of two major roads. __elcome to winter,_ one said. __hen fifty percent of drivers should have their licenses temporarily suspended.

And they all lived happily to the end of their days.

Withstanding the cold develops vigor for the relaxing days of spring and summer. Besides, in this matter as in many others, it is evident that nature abhors a quitter.

Cinder flexed her tongue, testing it, and raised her voice."I am princess Selene."Levana leaned forward. "Your are an impostor!""And I am ready to claim what's mine. People of Artemisia, this is your chance. Renounce Levana as your queen and swear fealty to me, or I swear that when I wear that crown, very person in this room will be punished for their betrayal.

I'll never look at you in any way but complete admiration._ He stroked her hair soothingly. __ou will never be a millstone about my neck. Rather you're the sunshine that brightens my day._ He swallowed. __on't you see? You brought me into the daylight. You've embraced parts of me that I was never able to let see light. Don't make me retreat again into the night. (Winter Makepeace)

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!__ merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doe blow,And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl,To-whit! To-who!__ merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

No animal, according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter.

Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it.

Pies mean Thanksgiving and Christmas and picnics.

When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its own. She loved this time of year. Summer was tedious with the light dresses she pretended to be comfortable in while secretly sure she looked like a loaf of white bread wearing a belt. The cold was such a relief.

But he place a gentle palm under her chin and turned her face back to him. __'m privileged to see you like this,_ he said, his eyes fierce. __ear you social mask at your balls and parties and when you visit your friends out there, but when we are alone, just the two of us in here, promise me this: that you'll show me only your real face, no matter how ugly you might think it. That's our true intimacy, not sex, but the ability to be ourselves when we are together. (Winter Makepeace)

One can follow the sun, of course, but I have always thought that it is best to know some winter, too, so that the summer, when it arrives, is the more gratefully received.

Winter came in days that were gray and still. They were the kind of days in which people locked in their animals and themselves and nothing seemed to stir but the smoke curling upwards from clay chimneys and an occasional red-winged blackbird which refused to be grounded. And it was cold. Not the windy cold like Uncle Hammer said swept the northern winter, but a frosty, idle cold that seeped across a hot land ever lookung toward the days of green and ripening fields, a cold thay lay uneasy during during its short stay as it crept through the cracks of poorly constucted houses and forced the people inside huddled around ever-burning fires to wish it gone.

The winter will be long and bleak. Nature has a dismal aspect.