There is a story

There is a story in those woods. No trifling thought or simple phrase. There is a story in them. The missing people have gone those ways. I never thought I'd watch them go with so much glee within my heart. They walked into the woods one day and left the world in their depart. I don't think they just disappeared. I don't think they are simply gone. Absent though their laughter is, that passage is not so very long. A question raised at fireside meal, a stray thought in the harvest fields. There is a story in distant wood. We'll question it until it yields. We'll poke and prod with travelers until they're lost from light of day. We'll never see those prods again, but we won't stop with time's decay.