Cooked Crab

Those little things we tolerate each day

Over and over in the same old way

Letting our minds give our bodies consent

Exposing ourselves to some fatal ailment

Risking, sometimes unknowingly

Are dangers that creep in stealthy

The frog that sits in a slowly boiling pot

Is oblivious of the fatal point when the water gets too hot

Notice how we sleep comfortably without a peek

Getting suffocated by the infusing gas leak

And how we sit in the audience enjoying a joke

Not concerned of being exposed to secondhand smoke

Upstream the salmon perils to make its plight

Never turning away from nature’s embattling fight

Because we learn early to tolerate

Even to pardon the recurring mistake

A fatal path we take on our daily route

Returning the road instead of turning about

And by our lifestyles we live surreptitiously

Bearing the unbelievable until our ultimate mortality

Like the adaptable crab, this tolerant invertebrate

Enduring dangers until it’s much too late