BLESSED COLD

My writings are always done

In a cold room in winter.

I can neither afford

Nor do I desire perpetual heat.

The electric fire I use

Would inhibit my creativity,

Counter my spiritual bias,

Drag me nearer the diabolic,

Which is ever hot.

I, however, require cold,

For it facilitates spiritual thought

And enables one to remain closer to the divine.

I am akin to Zarathustra,

With his cool-air heights,

And I wager that Nietzsche

Also spent many a day in a cold room.

Of course, I keep myself well-wrapped,

So as to ward off germs,

And generally I succeed in staying well.

But I would rather suffer

Periodic ill-health from the cold

Than lasting health

In front of the fire every day,

Since such a habit

Would not permit me to write as well

Or as profoundly as I do.

It would stultify me in no time,

Establishing, in place of my cool-air clarity,

A hothouse stuffiness

Injurious to clear thinking.

I would rather perish than become a vegetable.