failure in self-congratulation
birthday is in november, a month that skips by, that everyone agrees is useless and should rather be swallowed whole by october and december.
often, the most beautiful pages in a book are the ones at the beginning and the end - before the real pages even begin. they're called end pages, and they used to be used to hide the imperfections made when a book was bound, back when they were made by hand. they're made up of decorative paper, often gilded. of course, because of their nature, almost no one sees them.
winter is a season everyone bemoans, fearing the cold and the dark. they do not see how the snow rends everything clean, how when it falls it swallows all sound. how the river freezes over and leaves patterns in the ice, no two sections of the river alike.
the end pages, of course, are useless. nothing to admire, only an addition made by the lazy fool who could not bind the book well enough.
winter, of course, is a cruel and capricious lover. it freezes and kills.
sometimes, the useless things are useless. the snow is not the subject of a poem. it is just cold. it is just snow.