Brown Parade

Standing by her window
one morning
the Widow Wyile watches
the deer walk single
file through snow
laden bushes
dislodging cumulus
clouds from ice-ringed branches
nosing for frozen apples that forgot
to fall
treading with some care
ankles alert for jagged edges
where hoofs break crusts below
high heaped pillows of settled flakes
ears flickering
nostrils flaring
wide eyes watching 

one after another they weave
warm brown flecks
among frozen barely waving tree branches
crinkling in the wind
and pass out of sight
into the pines