Ragged breathing, on and on, the pair raced through the bracken
Carriage laden, heavy wares, their pace would never slacken
The Man held lash and shouted on, the beast it frothed and thundered
As forest whipped the dusk to blush, endless night broke asunder
Crimson hues and barren boughs draped o’er their tarried rush
With midnight purples seeping in with shadows from underbrush
And onward ho the Man urged his charge, for urgent was his cause
What was behind him spun his fears, with feather, beak, and claw
The Mystic warned him against drink and foretold a grim demise
If the Man kept on charades of snake oil, bilk, and lies
But drink he had, and lies he told, and crowds emptied their coffers
For healing salves and tonic cures, offer after offer
The Man counted gold while looking on at the cloaked women gathered
Weeping tears of joy at finding salvation they’d long sought after
Knowing their children were cured of the consumptive deathly plague
Or blindness solved, or limps made whole, the Man had shouted from his stage
It wasn’t until the children turned gray and cold within their beds
When the villagers remembered the Man who put such ideas in their heads
Now that Man was well away, cart well-laden with their gold
Several miles from another hamlet where his false hope could be sold
But the Mystic’s voice came to his ears, crisp and dark and true
That he had failed her warning and his recompense was due
The Man first laughed at such a thought but then the Owl came
Landing softly on his wagon, it’s bright eyes lit like flame
“Away!” he scolded to no avail, as the Owl always returned
Lighting upon his rumbling cart, glaring with eyes that burned
He took his rest near river’s edge and ignored the feathered foe
The Man spat upon the ground and slept against the crackling fire’s glow
He started with a shudder, and the smoldering red coals
Lit up a ghastly figure near the woods striking a crooked pose
A bent and ragged phantom, bones and shrouds of yellowed cloth
Held a crumbling arm extended, and the Owl was perched aloft
The Man choked on his screams and leapt upon the wagon high
Wildly whipping his steed to reckless escape into the night
Onward they went for hours, and the darkness wouldn’t shift
As if daylight had been forgotten, and the clouds would never lift
His eyes sooted with deathly fear and sleepless hours terror-thick
Dared to let fatigue take hold, and heavy eyelids began to slip
His horse knicked underfoot and cried, pulling the wagon with a thrash
Tumbling wildly into blackness, silence reigned after the crash
The Man awoke to find himself trapped by the waist
In a heap of splintered wagon parts, tonic bottles, wooden crates
As suddenly the golden fire of the Owl’s eyes did glitter
Landing at the edge of the wood with nary sound nor flitter
From the grey mist behind the fowl came emerging spectral shapes
Of colorless shambling skeletons, no eyes, no tongue, no face
Some still had flesh in pieces, or rotting tufts of faded hair
Some were still mere children, some where ugly, some were fair
Some had rags of linen from when their bodies were laid below
All were striding toward the Man, deliberate and slow
He tried in vain to extricate his broken body from the pile
But there would be no escape, he knew, so with a wicked smile
The Man pulled out some tonic potion from a crate that bore his name
He knew the remedy poison swill would headily bear fierce flame
Pouring its contents on himself and scattering it far and near
The Man beckoned forth with gaudy taunts, reckless in his fear
As the shadowed dead approached, he lit his last match alight
Closing his eyes, he dropped the spark, and his vision became bright
But not from fire, as he thought, for when he dared to peek
He saw the still-burning match clenched in the Owl’s beak
Screaming, he tore at his pockets, but no more matches would be found
As the vengeful dead staggered ahead, hundreds now gathered ’round
Days later, several of the village came to the clearing in the wood
Hoping to find a sign of the Man who fooled theirs neighborhood
His horse was found limping nearby, and was gratefully led away
Innocent of his master, “good riddance” is what he’d say
The wagon was reduced to rot, even though time barely passed
Since the Man had sold them poisoned lies in tiny vials of glass
One villager kicked bottles shattered at the edge of the wild
Still wiping hot tears of anger from her eyes over her lost child
When she noticed in the boughs above, an Owl gesturing down
To a pile of wood not quite decayed piled nearby on the ground
Turning planks to face the sun, she saw the clawed up oak
Raked with bits of fingernail, crimson slivers, dyed with smoke
She looked again to the Owl, who seemed to give a nod
Taking wing, the Owl departs, taking with it the dawn