Fall of the Mountain

8-word prompt: moan, solace, alive, palpitate, mountain, disease, plant, steep.

We once thought
nothing could break it, our democracy;
that it was the great mountain that
towered in the sky;
immovable, immutable,
a promise of freedom
capped in the glorious white
of all that is sacred and good—

But we were wrong.
The mountain that is our democracy,
like all living things,
can be subject to disease;
from deep within its valleys
there are cries of discontent,
of tribulation,
of war;
like lava that bubbles and swells, it is a collective moan,
a wail, a shriek
that will rise
and make the steep climb up the mountain
to destroy it from within.
It is a sickness, this hate and anger, that will palpitate and pulsate,
refusing solace, rejecting empathy and understanding, and it will plant itself
on our once glorious mountaintop,
alive and ugly, and set our mighty mountain on fire.