For Winter.

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you,
like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter,
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive. -Rilke

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. -Camus

When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter. -Phil