How It Happened Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

How it happens

In a cavern, a black rose so rarely it became
a religious symbol, no one could get near to see its beauty
but the guardian could not keep away the bold.
They found a black nylon sock given to a tramp
by the salvation army, thrown away and forgotten.
The rose represented a powerful symbol, the tale of the tramp
was rejected, the conspiracy theorist asked: why had the bum
thrown away one sock and not two?
Given a choice, we prefer beauty over truth and the black rose
became a place of worship, a place of pilgrimage,
hotels were built, and the restaurants opened, and the business was fine
until the day the virus came…