As If

Sculpture by Sterling Goller-Brown

Two logs were set afire.

  Some closed their eyes,

    minding their own business,

      as if wood wasn't really burning,

    while others critiqued, judged,

  and blamed the logs themselves,

as if it were spontaneous combustion.

Then five more logs were

  tossed into the fire.

    As the incendiary heat rises,

      it's difficult for any trees

        to deny the inferno.

      We can keep thumping matches

    across the strike-pad, or

  we can dig trenches around

our own little grove, or

we can speak and act with conviction,

  so that no more fuel is added,

    no more logs are lost.

What's it going to be?

© 2016 Todd Jenkins