Waterbug

'Tis Mete to Eat Meat?

Is it hypocrisy and double-think that lets us rescue worms,
then eat a steak dinner? So the vegans and Jains insist,
but I doubt it. Every game has rules,
and some games are elaborate.

We loved our dog, grieved when he grew sluggish,
unable to eat, had to be killed, knew
that thousands of dogs -- most capable
of limitless play and devotion --
were being killed daily in dog pounds,
but did not grieve for them, not
to the same degree.

The one we loved came to us one day,
so we took him in. Home is where (says Frost)
when you have to go there, they have to take
you in. When creatures discover that we are their home,
we have to take them in.

A man was shooting cats (it was in the news),
and speaking of it, Sam Johnson said (referring to
HIS cat, "Ah, but Hodge shall not be shot,
no Hodge shall not be shot!"

The child names his pet pig. Now
it must never be killed. What's
in a name?

The vegan eats plants. Plants, too,
live and die -- and feel pain (can't you tell?).

I can kill and I can spare. When I encounter
life, my fellow-life, my first impulse it to spare,
to protect, to nurture, to play. But when that life
becomes inimical to my own or to the lives
of others I care for, I can kill. I will put one cockroach
in a cup and toss him outside, but thousands of them,
swarming in a kitchen or bathroom, I will kill,
because I'd rather not spend a lifetime
transporting them to the front lawn.

Cows? Pigs? I once thought it evil
to eat them. Now I eat them. What
has changed? I no longer think it evil
to kill. I no longer think that bodies
are sacred. What changed my mind?
Hunger? No. My love of beef? No -- my tastes,
if not my body's needs, are fully satisfied
by brown rice with mushrooms, onions, peppers,
soy, cashews, garlic, cayenne...no,

at some point (around the time
I ceased to feel that capital punishment
was a tremendously important issue -- though
I still think it's a silly thing to do), I stopped
being much concerned about death,
my own or others, not that I became murderous,

but I came to feel that I had had and would have
all the life I could eat, bodies to waste,
that there was plenitude. I came to feel
that I could be whatever I chose to be,
could be the cows, swishing tails in the field,
munching soggy grass, could be a cow
and die, could be my body and eat,
turn that cow tissue into Dean tissue,
with fingers formed of cow and chicken and pig
and cabbage and water and apples,
could strike this keyboard and write
this poem, could be you, reading it,
wondering where it's going (don't
ask me!).

I think I need to borrow
the slightly used voice of Walt Whitman
to say that I am the lover of living cows
and lambs and pigs and chickens, and I am the lover
of dead and roasting cows and lambs and pigs
and chickens (who, in their tens of millions,
are nurtured only because they may be eaten),
appreciator of both their living and their dying,
savorer of their soft-eyed modesty,
their lusty, smoky flavors, the textured process
by which they become what I know is not really
me, their willingness to play the game, and
do I contradict myself? Why then
I contradict myself.

(But I avoid veal. The calves still have
too much playfulness to be killed,
so I tell myself.)

Dean

I'm in trouble, I think

Me too! I couldn't stand (when a child)
to put a hook through a worm, indeed,
I've been known to lift worms lost
on the vast expanse of the concrete sidewalk
(though they protest being touched)
to the grass where I hope they escape
to the cool dark earth.

In fact, if I learn to equate those slabs of beef,
those juicy steaks we like so much,
those boneless skinless breasts,
those chops, with the soft-eyed cows,
the nervous chickens, the pigs
(Oh, Babe! how could I)
I'm in trouble!

I wonder if people had more or less
of a feel for life when they had to do
their own killing to eat.

Pam

He Can't Imagine

My affection for ants and spiders
is not easy to sort out.
As a child, it bothered me
when another kid would stomp
on an ant hill or cut up
a live frog (he had a bucketful).
I'd try to stop such things,
get hit or mocked.

Partly, I think I wanted to be
saintly (though I didn't have
that word for it at age 5);
I wanted to be better
than those louts (another word
I didn't have then).

Partly I was squeamish,
whatever that means. When Dad
took us out fishing, I didn't want
to put a worm on the hook, or a
hook in a fish's lip, OK, that may be
respect for life, but why did I hate
to see the already dead fish cleaned?

But later I learned to kill
when killing was needed -- for example,
cockroaches when I worked in the galley
of a ship. I haven't gone to war
this lifetime, but I remember wars,
and I think I'm way past squeamish.

Yet, when I watch ants twiddling antennae
at each other, close up, or backing away
from my foot or exploring a bathroom floor,
watch a spider hanging from a picture frame
all a wriggle, as it notices my presence
and plays dead --

I sense the sentience of something
not unlike myself and those I love,
some bit of canniness out for survival
of self and others, burdened with duties,
quick to respond to threat, full of tiny,
complex motions and big, simple desires,

not to equate us (how does one make
such judgments? Do we say, "OK, ant,
write me Shakespeare's plays!"?), but
life is life; it's alive; it tickles
the imagination with dreams
of tiny eyes that might look sad
if one could make them out; little traps
for sentiment, but also pure imagination,
no teary eyes on bugs, just something
one could be.

A kid who stomps on ant hills
is making the world less interesting,
less abounding in tiny holes in the world
in and out of which our imaginings
might dart. He can't imagine
what he is crushing.

Dean

You have my vote

You have taught me the language of spiders,
how to reassure an ant,
the correct way to pick up a cricket
(lamentably languishing inside)
and put him carefully outdoors.
I don't know whether they recognise you,
but I do.

Pam

A Tough Job, But Somebody's Got to Do It

I have turned squirming beetles right-side up,
lifted worms across hot or puddled sidewalks
on a twig, caught wasps in a cup to release them
outside, fed birds in winter, cared for cats
and dogs...

Do any of these creatures have words for me,
concepts? Are stories about me and my ilk
passed on to others of the species, stories told
from worker ant to hatchling, cat to kitten?

Am I angel to some, devil to others?
(Intentionally or, usually, not,
I've crushed insects, swatted a cat.)
Do they pray to a Guardian Dean?

I wonder what sort of silly poems
they make of me. I wonder what
I make of me.

Dean

Angel in my pocket

I'd like to think I have
an angel in my pocket —
singing hallelujah, smelling like
lilacs, yellow as forsythea.
If I always listened to my angel,
I would be kind (forsooth), forgiving,
the sort of person folks open up to
because they felt relieved and
just damn good, having talked.

Pam

Matchmaking

Lucifer in the sky with diamonds!
Lucifer was Satan's angelic name,
we're told. Light bearer, a streak
arching archangelically across the sky.

Stars do fall. (So do arches)
That's why thousands of Hollywood tourists
look for the stars in the sidewalk at their feet,
their feet swollen with touristing,
their poor fallen arches.

And what became of the name?
Those wooden matches are called "Lucifers".
Fallen angels in our pockets.

But that's no angel in my pocket:
I'm just happy to see you,
matchless one.

Dean

Lucifer

Bearer of Light

Light-bearing Lucifer,
sliding down the sky,
did you ever think you'd find the truth,
know the reason why?

Pam

To An Old Flame

Lucifer is also a word for a match,
since, falling, he lit up the night
like a shooting star.
Fierce or angelic,
you light my fire,
O perfect match.

Dean

Angelic

Angels have their bad days too

Wasn't Lucifer a fallen angel?
I too have my dark side and
I do use it on you, sometimes,
darling.

Pam