Heidi StephensonAnimal Rights Poetry By Heidi Stephenson From All-Creatures.org




The Mourning After


10 million baby turkeys are dead now, (in the UK alone) as well as hundreds of thousands of young pigs, ducks, geese, lobsters and other poor victims.

Not one of those terrible deaths was necessary.

We could still have gathered with our friends and families.

We could still have watched The Snowman.

We could still have exchanged presents and eaten a good meal together - without all the gushing blood.

We could still have played charades, told jokes, drunk wine and brandy, pulled crackers, worn silly hats and fallen asleep in front of Mary Poppins.

And they could still have been here, living out their God-given, natural lives (at least a decade, without our violent interference.)

What momentary ‘pleasure’ was honestly worth their mass murder (even a single death)?

An hour or two of drunken gorging…for a trusting, living being to be killed and crapped out again, just a few hours later?

Within half a day, we can’t even stand the taste, sight or smell of ‘turkey,’ ‘turkey’ sandwiches or ‘turkey’ curry.

The Great Capitalist Build Up …is over in a nano second…Our islands now littered with their young carcasses (and all those needlessly felled pine trees.) And already we’re busy signing up for exercise classes and diet plans.

And all those beautiful, young beings: those curious, bright, relational, friendly, trusting, sensitive beings, who expected so much more from us, who deserved so much more from us, who thought we cared about them, who spent a miserable 6 months in dark barns because of avian flu, being force-fed to the point of collapse…are DEAD now.

We have just gorged on their trembling terror.

We have just swallowed their terrible fear and pain.

We have just ingested one screaming bird after another… and all of their heart-thumping stress in extremis.

And we wonder why stomach and bowel cancers are so prevalent?

Jesus didn’t want this for his ‘birthday.’ Jesus loved his animal brothers and sisters!

Jesus wasn’t even born during the Roman, pagan, sacrificial festival of Saturnalia, on Dies Natalis Solis Invicti: the 25th of December, the "Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun" Sol Invictus - as declared by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 274 AD.

The actual date of Jesus's birth is unknown.

But in the ancient world he was widely rumoured to have been executed close to the anniversary of his birth, during the bloody Jewish Passover on March 25th - making him, given a day or two, almost certainly, a loving Piscean: born under the sign of the Fish.

Let’s commit to sparing (and proactively saving) our fellow beings – long before next year’s mass animal massacre, in the cause of the bloody Great Lie.

“I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” (Genesis 1:29)

©Heidi Stephenson, 2022

Peaceable Kingdom
"Peaceable Kingdom" painting by Edward Hicks

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