It seemed almost idyllic.
The morning sun bright
On the night’s soft snow
The sweeping.curve of the valley
Framed by graceful pines
Boughs laden, cupped full
The river black, glistening
narrowed by ice shelves,
And along its bank a road
Paralleled it’s darkness
Freshly cleared,
salted, sanded, open, empty,
quietly awaiting the morning traffic.
But it struck me
That on the edges, margins, shoulders
Crushed and piled
Dirty and misshapen
Thrust to the sides
By rumbling steel blades
Lay all that same beauty
Fallen by chance,
wrong time, wrong place
Now just the detritus
Of the violence needed
To smooth the passage
Of the privileged
Who will blindly drive by
Seeing only the glory beyond.
And I wondered about the forgotten,
Accepted but unseen,
Unacknowledged
Of collateral damage
Of necessary evil,
The ends justified
By a greater good