At the Window

walking from car to house
and back again
has left a solemn trail
through the whiteness
that once was a green-brown
lawn,
I sit just inside the door,
thick wooden barrier
to the crisp chill that lurks
outside,
rattling shutter and glass alike,
buried beneath blankets and
watching through the crystal-coated pane
as across the glistening stream
and its automotive banks,
small armies wrapped in nylon-encased
down,
heads and hands bound in wool,
both homemade and store bought,
wage war with wintry weapons
until their numbed limbs
demand
cocoa.