When Winter's Scream is Silenced

It is spring here in the city of Milwaukee, which always makes me feel like a child again. Those of you who live in the warmer climes probably do not have the appreciation for this transitory season that us northerners possess. There is something deep within the soul that stirs when the first green blade is spotted rising from the grey earth. It is difficult to put that feeling into words, as if the dried husk that had encased the spirit over those long wintry months is suddenly broken open to let the radiance of sunlight play over the forgotten fields that lay in wait for its gentle encouragement. This may seem as nothing more than a bunch of poetic nonsense to you if you reside in L.A. or Miami, but it is that you do not know what it is to outlive winter's punishing grip. And it is punishing. You do not know what winter is until you have had to scrape your car windows clean of frost in sub-zero temperatures--those merciless early mornings when you are running late for work and you emerge from the warmth of your home to discover the awful labor that awaits you. And then to feel the feeling slowly drain from your hands as the glass is vigorously cleared. That is nothing less than battle. Man vs. Nature stuff. I'm surprised Hemingway never wrote a story about it, but then again, he retreated to Key West. He let the winter win, and the knowledge of it crippled him for the rest of his days. So much so that he was relegated to playing tour guide to Castro and his buddies, lighting their cigars on command. Not even Ezra Pound would answer his letters after that.
Yes, the winter has been known to take vibrant people and cut them down in the prime of life, leaving them crippled and dumb. But that is the north for you--natural selection at its most primitive and unforgiving. It is no wonder that the northern climes have given rise to such crazed individuals as Dan Ackroyd, Vince Lombardi, and Pat Sayjak, who's violent carousing has been covered up by Griffen Enterprises for years. It is what, in no small part, turned the young Robert Zimmerman into the poet-seer of his time. Out there in the wastes of northern Minnesota strange visions come to you out of the interplay of drifting snow and sunlight. Few people realize that All Along the Watchtower is a retelling of the Native American myth of the Windego.
So when the hard winds of March start to give over to the slow trickle of green across the landscape, you will forgive us northerners if our responses should seem so brutishly emotional. We cannot help it, for this welling up of emotion is ingrained in our pagan mentality. We are children of the earth, and when the sun again showers its gifts down upon us, please forgive our brazen displays of nakedness
and animalistic howling. It is only the spirit thawing out from its cold hibernation. One could almost forget the world is insane, forget that one madman could end it all in a moment, forget that football/soccer is the second most dangerous spectator sport in the world next to religion--the world is alive and beckoning us to her. The white garments of winter have been removed--let us join her!