Last Apple of Winter

Solemnly strung on the tatters of a crisp winters morn,
The wind licked and taunted,
Stubborn but beaten it hung,
Light bled through the tangled weave, malignant the weather
Skelton and heart,
Anticipation of chance, hope that hope would bear
A soldier? A prisoner?
To surpass brothers and sisters prior to ones self, clutching thy nurse or a mother latched to a child?
Delayed negotiation.
The last apple of winter, died before baptism ambivalent of the gesturing soil, life will first perish then flourish, providence waits.