Ode to an Ashen Coco.

I spied the lady Coco today, tripping delicately into the town bakers famed for its traditional association with gingerbread delectables. You might remember previous mentions of Coco, the Chinese lady who graces the money changing establishment near the marketplace.

I thought she looked a little wan, verging on the lightly ashen, and assumed it to be an affliction evoked by the dreary dampness which has infected the air for so many weeks now. Being nothing if not a man of letters, ever ready to take up pen and keyboard in rigorous defence of a lovely but stricken lady, I felt an ode coming on and thought of ash:

Shall I compare thee

To a smoggy day in old Beijing

Where ne’er a merry roundelay is heard

For not a bird will deign to sing

To woo its mate with lovelorn din

But coughs instead

In Mandarin

Don’t ask. I have observed that while one’s actions might be controllably circumspect, one’s state of mind is often implacably independent of saner virtues.