Because we think it's less violent to raise our own than to rely on industrial protein sources, even soy...


The Knowledge of It

Without innocence we took their lives…
after their birth to freedom and clannish love,
suckling their mother in the dark warren she had made
nestling together in piles of soft warmth.
After hiding in blackberry bramble,
and observing the boundary of the road but trespassing into our garden
after sharing lettuce, kale and onions
and loving apples and carrots,
after countless stretches and sun salutations,
after posing like contented dogs…
Upon entrapment in a wire bottomed hutch,
they saw clearly with their wide eyes
our narrow, predatorial focus;
their fine manure and gentleness had not bought them life.

After early mornings tending them,
cleaning their pen, offering greens, grain and water.
after fasting them to make the end kosher,
right after giving figs and clover,
then we took their lives. I stroked each one in my arms, cheek and forehead at once.
He folded their ears over their eyes, forced them to calmness,
their bodies slack and still, like yogis at rest.
He pinned them down under a crowbar and struggled hard so that it broke their necks.
All this tending ending in palpable violence.

Last of the Old Hens

Last of the Old Hens

Blue hobbles, favoring her left foot.
incontinent, she dribbles her infertile, pale
S e
e d
s

scattering them like the grains and flowers
that she eats; she is no longer nimble
enough to bear into the nest box.


Cadillac remains among her sisters
here to strut toward the human hand
she must find adequate---it can be
counted on to meet her simple demands.
Her life is good, she knows so she crows
into my chest the most fetching gurgle.
I embrace this pulse, this warmth.
Her scaly talon wraps round mine.
Her nails describe her work:
An armless search, scratching, moving into
the shade of a Birch when the sky so decrees.
She is all skirt and feminine gifts. I love her
for her friendly ways. Her sisters were not
so forward. Even among fowl such a one
displays fine and few.


Crooked Sister shies and skitters
without her crooked crew. Poor old bird.
Once a member of a trio of maimed chicks,
she and her flock now and then found themselves
in the mouth of a Labrador, then released
only to be pursued and caught by their tails,
made twisted and broken. Still she lays!