We Never Thought

We never thought it would happen
that it would go this far
but we were wrong

We never thought…
but of course that was the problem
that has always been the problem

At first it was a minor nuisance
easy to ignore
nothing dangerous
an annoyance
a blemish spreading slowly
so slowly that
when otherwise distracted
we chose not to notice
not to look

And when we did notice
we wrote it off as an aberration
something that would heal itself
certainly nothing to worry about
and while we laughed and dallied
it crept and crawled and insinuated itself
into dark places and corners

We grew up here
we raised families here
we fought for this place

And so the question now is
do we repair the damage
and if so, how
or just burn it down
and start over

Marv Himmel
October 2, 2016 ©

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