We Didn't Notice

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