Do not eat a creature that can run away from you.
Is that too much a task to ask?
Chances are that if it can – if it can run,
And running’s not from simple fun,
It’s scared, has pain, a brain like yours. It’s suffering.
So if it relays to legs four
To spring from harm and/or from killing,
My admonishment is this: be willing
To NOT eat this thinking, feeling, fleeing treat.
It is not mete to turn this flesh into a meal,
Make an object from a subject that can feel;
Act unmasks the cruel toxicity of villainry,
Defeats the heart of mercy,
Ergo,
Do not eat the thing that seeks to run away from you.
*I first heard George Osawa, the creator of macrobiotics say it in Chico, California 1963.
Don’t Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You 4.19.2018 Nature In & Of Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 