Tale Of The Red Witch Poem by Patti Masterman

Was a rose red dawn, on the blood red day
That we burnt the witch, on bales of hay;
Her hair so red, it blinded men,
And made them think of supple sin;
And ivory flesh, and flashing green
Of angered eyes; that mind so keen.
From sunset's red, the harbor gleamed;
From her stone words, no truth to glean-
They stood her, lashed her to the beam
And lit the blaze, and watched it spread;
It climbed up toward her brackish eyes,
She wept and called out, toward the skies
To save her; now her iron will broke
As on the fumes, began to choke;
No word would say, to silence those
Who her last agony, happly chose-
But now upon the pain of death,
She swore a stack of bibles that
She was no witch; she had no pact
And as her tender flesh was racked,
She slumped as though her life had fled
And stayed there till seemed truly dead.
Just dead enough, she looked to be,
So they cut her loose, the savaged tree
And laid her on the harbor's wood-
A few were weeping; wished they would
Have dowsed the fire, or saved her soul.
Before the embers had grown cold
They left her there alone that night
For to bury, at morning's light.
Morning came, with a wild surprise:
The dawn redder, than last night's fire
The wind had red rust, in it's breath
As if from guilt too, at her death
And fierce gusts lashed their trembling homes
And moaned, as if a thousand crones
Were flying over land and bay,
Wondering where their sister lay.
Then stray fires came, to eat their town:
Every structure burnt to ground.
One man went, to the Red Witch grave,
For no one else would be as brave;
He came back, pale as sun bleached bones;
Said her body was quite gone,
She was missing from the hole-
It opened wide, and nothing there,
And then they felt, as if a stare
Were piercing them, from up above
And looked up then, to see the dove
With whitest breast, and brackish eyes;
It flew three circles, way up high,
Then flew off then, to who knows where-
For doves were only rare, seen there.
And the sky, blood red, bled out it's soul
As heaven paid the sorry toll.
Beware the Red Witch; she's the worst:
For nothing known can lift her curse.