Living with Cold   Winter begins in July, when the days are long but getting shorter, when the green world races toward fulfillment, when the haze of a hot afternoon no longer means that summer is forever. We’ve been told before: there’s an art to living with cold.   Winter is the soul of autumn, the ghost in October’s machine — no more pretending there’s nothing to prepare, not when most of the leaves have turned. Everything depends on what we do now — will the woodshed hold enough? There’s an art to living with cold.   Winter begins as absence, dwindling glow of the sun, alarming onrush of night and everything darkness means. When the snow comes in the hush of December, the rites of time are rattled in with beech leaves rolled up tight. There’s an art to living with cold.   Winter is old news by February, but winter doesn’t care about our comfort, doesn’t care about our bones, and we do well to forget, let ourselves grow numb to color, value silver over gold, and master the art of living with cold.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont February 2016