My Poetry. The way of the Witch.

Darkness falls upon the village now,
Where birds no longer sing their song;
Save for the owl’s hoot and the boar’s wild shriek,
Where the shadows have grown far too long.
The last inhabitant reached ninety-four,
While others perished in their youth;
A vengeful spirit, burned at the stake,
Enforced her own dark, bitter truth.

Who was this woman, and why was she slain?
Only a silent few truly knew;
They say she practiced her craft by night,
As her eerie reputation grew.
She lived alone with a cat of coal,
As black as the night’s own breath;
In those deep hours, one might hear
The devil’s voice whispering of death.

Smoke still drifts from the chimney stack,
Releasing lights of a colorful hue;
To the naked eye, it seems as though
Floating figures are passing through.
Tall and short, some animal-like,
Born from a shimmer of ancient gold;
Hardly a soul remains to recount
How the rest of the tale would unfold.

What were these shapes, and why did they come?
Only the witch was informed of the why;
All that was known was that every night,
Malformed horrors would drift through the sky.
Vanishing quickly into the dark,
No one knew where they chose to go;
Nor the purpose of their timely birth—
No light on the truth could they throw.

Suddenly, an angry crowd had formed
To catch the witch in her secret act;
Accused of black magic by those with hate,
They took it as a proven fact.
At 10:35 on a chilly day,
She paid for her life in the fire’s light;
The black cat gave an eerie squeal,
As the air grew thick with a cold, sharp fright.

Even today, the smoke still climbs,
Though the house is ruined and decayed;
If you look closely within the haze,
The figures remain. BE AFRAID!

© William Sinclair Manson 2025