One Word

What started this avalanche?

A simple pebble dislodged from the side

Of the mighty mountain's peak

A simple word spoken without thought

Its echoes reverberated through the valley's gape

And every tree shuddered with its sound

And nothing would ever be the same again

Snow packed down by years of frost

Laid down in winters, primal and young

Accumulated over so many years

There was so much snow, so so much

And that one word was all it took

Took to break apart those invisible walls

Those floodgates that had held all back

And then the mountain rumbled intensely

And the snow began to move after years of still

The snow slid sown the mountain with slow purpose

Like the white bridal gown sliding off tender shoulders

That rumbling, churning, wall of destruction

Dislodged danger summoned by a word

A single, simple, lonely little word

It broke the mountain's face apart

And revealed the granite hidden for so long

And the tumbling, grinding, insatiable snow

That broke away trees planted in nice neat rows

It cascaded over lodges, over pines and burrows

Nothing was scared nothing was spared

The destruction was coming to all the same

What started this avalanche this painful metaphor?

One word was all it took on that day

One word from you is all it's ever taken