Permafrost?

There is something to be said for the swirling Arctic Vortex  --  unendurabe; a cyclonic mass of frigid air covering the continent in thick bricks of ice, impenetrable walls, intricate stalactites.

A New Age that bears no resemblance to mystical incense and tranquilizing tone poems on Pan pipes, Chakras sparkling like the Aurora Borealis, or the gentle aspects of the slightly blemished pear, organically farmed, juicy with pectin and pesticide-free pulp.

But I am not inclined to say or think anything about the more obvious conditions of New Age weather. Rather, I am drawn to images and sound -- or the lack of them.

From my window I see a few humans, their wraps and mufflers masking features, gender almost indistinguishable, soldiering like Emperor Penguins, teeter-tottering on sheets of glass.
Their movements are bizarre, their breath quiet, tentative, wary, like their steps.

In the worst of the cold there is profound silence. An occasional hum of existence punctuated by the crackle of air; vodka hitting ice cubes in a warm Old-Fashioned tumbler.

People don't say much out there. Frozen words, sounds, sighs sit suspended like forgotten laundry on a clothesline, too fragile and brittle to move.

Under and over the skyline comes the wind. Not Sandburg's Fog -- on "little cat feet" --  but a Soviet Bear, heavyset, thunderous in its squat blue-blasting breath, stinging barbs, making cheeks and foreheads run red with Revolution.

In Dallas they whisper, "Hello, Comrade, welcome 2014."