A poem about the environment
We Didn't Notice
By: Grace Forciea
We didn't notice
as we were driving on the freeway
every morning
the land disappearing slowly
year after year
we didn't notice
our favorite wildlife thinning out
and not returning
we blamed it on migration
not an immigration up to heaven
we didn't notice
the gas guzzlers
pumping black smoke into the air
we didn't notice
we just went about our days
eating
drinking
sleeping
we didn't notice
that our food and our water
was a bother to our bodies
and the substance in our apples
wasn't natural or "organic"
we didn't notice
that organic became a title for something real
we didn't notice
that the trees lost their leaves
during the summer and fell over in the winter
black cancer growing on their branches and eating at their cores
we didn't notice
that guns replaced text books and killing was a solution to a problem
like mass shootings minus a revolution
would solve everything
we didn't notice
that green grass grew where snow melted in December
we didn't notice
that every winter turned into spring
and the hum of bulldozers
could be heard over the horizon
we didn't notice
that the world was becoming a swimming pool with no lifeguards
and a flame was growing in the souls of every forest,
spreading until existence was a lost trend
in a dying world
