The Red String
Three travelers come across a forest,
And pause to gaze--
Trees tall and hoar with age, in hushed air,
Whose mossy trunks
Are strikingly ornamented with a red string
Winding and weaving its way
‘round and through the ageless pillars.
Their wondering gaze follows the red string
As it flows and bends
Leaving a crimson scar.
Silence presses;
The first strides to the red string--
The second steps back--
The third keeps his ground--
He flicks it, and brazenly smiles.
The red string vibrates
Then hums, then moans,
Louder, as the trees take up an earthquake groan;
The forest now trembles
Deafening in sound, relentless in spirit
The travelers flee,
The forest collapses
What remains: The skeleton of a great creature
A creature held together by the red string
Whose knotted bones were formed of ancient oaks
Whose skin was an emerald cloak.
Now in those remains, none dares to tread
There still are heard faint moans, it’s said,
And all who venture there are later found dead