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

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