Late one summer night during
a long drive to the mountains
of my youth, on my way to see
my ailing father,
white flecks began to graze
my windshield like snowflakes,
fluffy, incongruous . . .
the surrounding forest --
stoic and sad.

This, along with the upwardly winding
road and the solitude, gave the night
a surreal aspect that strangely
touched my heart.

Overtaking the cause of the phenomenon,
I came upon an open truck
of mutilated chickens, still alive,
peering forlornly and terrified
into the rushing night,

thrown helter-skelter into their
moving prison, their beaks cut off,
one atop the other, feathers
torn away by the wind,
like so much living garbage
heading for slaughter . . .

The truck downshifted and I zoomed past.
One a.m. A billion stars.
The silent beauty of the mountains.
And I, ashamed to be a man.

A few days later I took my father
to the specialist, who said
things had gone too far -- yes,
things had gone too far.

I don't know why the two events conjoin
on this stormy night, back in my
subtropical illusion of home and sanctuary.

We kill to preserve our lives.
Yes. To preserve our lives.

But we do more.

We humiliate and torture
in the name of commerce,
and disregard the suffering
as if it were not our own.