Dark, deep...intrigue

Red Riding Hood, was lost in the woods,

every single day  she’d traversed this path,

every moment  she had, memorized by heart,

she felt she saw a shadow behind her,

or was it looming  up ahead, anew?

She shrugged her tiny shoulders,

adjusting the hood, eyes on the path, quick she moved.

She had been warned often of the existing slews,

In her heart she believed and also clearly knew,

there was no knowing when feeling overtook her,

there was no telling how enamoured she stood.  

She shirked it off again, holding her basket tight,

as the winds blew through the woods.

She reached her destination, with a tiny detour,

she caught up with the shadow and

let it slowly vanish as she rued.

She faced the ghosts; she rollicked with the sleuths,

she let them dance about her, as she meandered

through the meadows.

As she took it all in, at peace she was,

there was in the air a strange calm.

Fairy tales and other stories of that kind have always intrigued and fascinated me. My childhood was punctuated by variations and sometimes verbatim repetitions of these tales which slowly seeped into my being and then as I grew, I read more and analyzed the tales and tried to superimpose them with my own interpretations and feelings…

This is an experiment, that I earlier tried with Cinderella and now, my all-time favourite, Little Red Riding Hood. Academics have interpreted it in context to the original version as meaning to show the arrival of spring, the blossoming of a girl into a woman, the dawn of another day etc…but my take is as above….