The cackles of a murder call from a Pine,
Aged buck staggers through snow with broken tine.
Blinding ice whips through the wood, his time soon to pass as crows hold black mass.
Winter starved, no grass to find, no longer running with his kind.
Frost on brow, fog from breath, older stag facing death.
Black harbingers circle calling more as he waits his fate, humbled yet once a Woodland king so great.
Soon to lay in bed of snow, biting wind his only remaining foe.
His warmth has left him, he grows so weak soon to be flesh torn by beak.
Among the blooms of spring, his white bones shall lay in tomb of green,
His broken crown, in verdant from a distance will be seen.
