The Rope of the Righteous

That winter, fear moved into Salem, settled by our side,
Each Sunday brought another threat the pulpit magnified.
My father said that doubt was how the Devil first crept in
I learned to hold my tongue before a question could begin.

When girls began to scream, the village clamoured for a name,
Someone to make the unknown clear, someone to bear the blame.
They never asked what troubled them, but whose malicious deed
By night, a neighbour’s careless words were proof enough to heed.

Before the judge, unseen intruders haunted every claim,
From nightmares they forged heavy chains and fastened them to names.
How could you prove you never walked through someone else’s dread?
There, certainty wore reason’s robes while reason bowed its head.

Behind closed doors, they questioned them until resistance broke,
The clerk made tidy stories from the fractured words they spoke.
Even children offered names when pressed beyond endurance;
The elders thanked the Lord and took their terror for assurance.

When Rebecca Nurse was cleared, I thought the end had come at last,
They sent the jury back to weigh the judgement they had passed.
When once again the door swung wide, no mercy could be found
The law kept asking till it heard an answer fit to hang her from the ground.

Nineteen were hanged; I saw the places empty, row by row,
Where we had bowed our heads together only weeks ago.
Their deaths cured no disease and brought no harvest to the land
Just suppers cooling in more homes, untouched by any hand.

They piled great stones upon Giles Corey’s chest to make him plead,
Until the stones alone remained to testify to what they’d decreed.
No earth split wide; no demon fled his body for the night
Men laid the weight upon him; men stood watching in plain sight.

They stopped the trials, but no cart turned back along the track,
No altered reading of the law could bring the buried back.
Now, when they preach of purity, I see the rope drawn tight
Folly became law where doubt itself was branded wrong, and fear was right.