If You, Dear Sir, Care to Reflect…

“Why, God,” she asked, “did you give it life?

Was it just to make it come under a butcher’s knife

And be baked as a pie and land up on the plate

Of this ‘man of God’ as its ultimate fate?”

She watched with horror the ‘man of God’ munch

Almost the entire lamb that afternoon for lunch.

It must have weighed a full kilo at the very least,

A fancy dish for a special day marked with a feast.

Her mind went back to earlier that same day,

When before a crowd she heard the man say:

“Oh people, you must always be gentle and kind.

Be merciful to each other—keep that in mind.”

She mused: “As per his job, love he constantly preaches,

But see his own teachings how he so easily breaches!

He harps on ‘love’, but where was his love oh so great

When he gobbled with such gusto that lamb on his plate?

Didn’t the lamb deserve to be treated with loving-kindness

By this ‘man of God’, this so-called ‘His Holy Highness’?

See how dreadful he looks chewing on the lamb’s bone,

He thinks kindness should extend to humans alone.

He piously teaches that we must love our neighbours

While the flesh of beasts and birds he greatly savours.

Aren’t beasts and birds, I ask, our neighbours, too?

‘Do with them’, I say, ‘as you want them to do with you’,

Which means, we should respect their right also to live,

And to them, too, our love and care we should give,

And from taking their life we humans must refrain,

Because they, too, like us, experience great pain.

But this ‘man of God’ delights in their flesh’s taste,

And yet projects himself as oh so pious and chaste.”

Her Inner Voice made her meet the ‘man of God’ that day,

And to him she spoke what she was guided to say:

“Sir, you preach non-stop about love and compassion.

You need to do this, it being part of your profession.

We ought to be love and be kind—that I know,

But I see your kindness doesn't far enough go.

All other species also deserve our kindness and love,

They being fellow children of the good Lord ‘above’.

Oh how these hapless creatures in great pain quake,

While being to death in cold blood just for your sake!

Think of all they suffer, their trauma and fear,

All that they undergo for your big belly mere.

Munching on their meat, your taste buds you titillate,

Wolfing down huge chunks of it, your greed you satiate.

You love chewing their bones and you fatten on their lard,

Your belly you've turned into a vast animal graveyard!”

The ‘man of God’ was furious hearing her speak,

On being challenged by a girl looking so meek,

For, he brooked no defiance, having always had his way,

Demanding that others must him blindly obey.

“Don’t you know”, he barked, “our holy elders meat ate?

Are you better than them all, more clever and great?

You think they were in darkness and you’re in the light?

If our great men ate meat, it must certainly be right!

How dare you our foreparents so brazenly offend!

You must be forced to our hallowed ways bend."

A book he claimed was from God he then began to evoke,

Saying that in this book long ago God clearly spoke.

Over all other species, it said, God had made man king,

So that man could then do with them just about anything.

It claimed God had appointed man as Creation’s crown,

Placing humans right on top while all the rest far down.

That's why, the man said, God gave man full right to eat

The flesh of animals and birds and all other such meat.

The girl replied to him with great confidence:

“All that you have said now just makes no sense.

I don’t regard that book you refer to as divine,

So, appealing to it won’t make me toe your line.

No proof exists that this book’s really from God,

And that all its words are straight from the Lord.

So, its claims I’m certainly not bound to accept.

In fact, they are something that I totally reject.

These dictums have no validity at all for me,

That they are manmade, I can clearly see,

Devised, in part, in order to seek to legitimize

Human exploitation of animals in ‘pious’ guise.

That you consider this book Holy Writ, I can see,

But for me no such book has any such authority.

Only a book teaching respect for every creature

Might I agree to accept as a reliable teacher.”

The girl then went on to boldly state,

Firmly, but with no tinge of hate:

“You preach tirelessly the ‘Do not kill’ commandment,

Yet, you defend killing animals with a zeal fervent.

You claim that God Himself has heartily enjoined

Slaying and eating almost any beast one can find.

You claim of the beasts, birds, fish, plants and trees,

That man can do with them just as he might please.

You claim that man was appointed by the Creator

Over all other species on Earth as their dictator,

With authority to do with them as he might want,

Having power over them for him to proudly flaunt.

You claim God exalted man and made him Earth’s king,

Decreeing that he rule over every other being and thing.

You claim the purpose for which other species were made

Was simply to slog and slave for man without being paid.

You claim God made all other species only for man’s sake.

O sir, what more preposterous claims will you make!

 If you asked them, animals would relate a different story,

A theory that simply refuses to give man any such glory.”

Saying all this, the girl went on to assert,

Politely, yet at the same time curt:

“Oh the pathetic shrieks of the beasts while being slain!

How excruciating must be their terror and pain!

Don’t you for their intense suffering any sorrow feel?

Or, is it that all you can think of them is as your meal?

Doesn’t their pathetic plight your ‘holy’ heart move?

O sir, of this bloody crime how do you approve?

Think of the terrible torment birds and beasts undergo,

Do you, paid preacher of ‘love’, care for this? Oh no!

Beast or bird, be it a rooster, sheep or goat,

What pain it suffers as a knife saws its throat!

Oh the heartrending and truly awful cries

As it struggles in pain and then finally dies!

Doesn’t this all make you scream out in disgust,

Or, is it that your conscience has turned to rust?

Doesn’t their dreadful plight strike your ‘pious’ heart?

Oh no! How much you delight in chewing them apart,

And gorging on their flesh with such great relish

When they’re turned for you into an exotic dish.

O ‘man of God’, don’t you ever shudder

At the plight of these beings, their veritable murder?

Every day, globally, millions of them are maimed,

Killed and then eaten, in a mass killing unnamed.

Respect all God’s creatures’ right to live, ‘man of God’,

If you don’t, one can only say you’re just a big fraud.”

Then, the girl said kindly while readying to depart,

Hoping her final words would turn the man’s heart:

“I’ve explained now almost all I wanted to say,

But there’s one last thing I must now convey,

A message I must share with you before I go,

And that is: Every single seed that we now sow

We'll have to reap, some or the other day,

For our every action we’ll have to pay.

So, if today you’ve greatly enjoyed eating a beast,

In your next birth on you someone else might feast,

With you having been reborn as a lamb, or maybe a fish,

And then landing up as a meal on some person’s dish.

As you do to others, so will it be done to you: tit-for-tat,

If you care for your wellbeing, please don’t forget that!

If you, dear sir, care to reflect on all this,

And if you don’t take my words amiss,

It might help you from eating flesh to abstain,

Thus saving yourself in some next birth much pain.

Vow, then, right now, never again to eat

Any sort of animal, fish or bird meat.”