Four Vignettes from the Hog Barn

1.
His pigs followed him like household pets
Into the empty livestock trailer,
Trusting the curly-haired young man
Of the kind voice and the gentle touch
Who had always brought them their food.

They followed their boy with doglike faith
From the trailer onto the runway,
Snuffling, fascinated by the myriad smells
As he led them onto the scale.
Then their Judas goat slipped through a gate,
Abandoning his charges to their fate.

After they've been weighed
There's a sudden flurry of shouts
And a barrage of paddle-swats
That drives the panicked beasts
Toward the man with the brand.
After they've been tattooed
They're driven into the wet-down,
The prelude to the chute that leads
To slaughter by asphyxiation.

The curly-haired boy waits patiently
For his payment in the Hog Office;
Hr grins happily as the check is cut.
He knows now that his 4H project
Has brought him in enough money
To buy a new PlayStation.

2.
The fast food chain representatives
Have sent out a "slaughter check" team
To ensure that their standards
Mandating "Humane Slaughter,"
That oxymoron spawned of guilt,
Are being adhered to.

No shouting at the hogs,
No kicking or striking them,
Just gentle nudges and a calm voice.
Sure, they're going to be slaughtered,
But the aim is to make becoming a McRib
Or the sausage in a breakfast biscuit
As stress-free a journey
As a hog can possibly aspire to.

The hog-drivers mask their frustration
As they try to move them under the conditions
Imposed by "Happy Meal" hypocrisy.
By lunch, when the team departed,
The kill total was down three hundred hogs.

That afternoon the chain-speed was cranked up
And it was back to "business as usual,"
As the hogs were treated like swine again.
The kill made up the three hundred hog shortfall
By the end of the shift.

3.
"Christ, he's not doing what I think he is,"
I hoped as I came upon the scene.
Big Ned, a hard worker, yet somewhat slow,
Yet perfect for the monotony of line work,
Where an imagination can be detrimental,
Had ambled out to visit a friend in the hog barn.
He had discovered an electric shock prod
That some trucker had inadvertently left behind.
"Watch this," he said, showing off for his buddy
Who had laughed as he gave a pig a zap in the snout
And had given another one some volts on its ass.
"See that old boar over there.
I'm going to nail him with this right in the nuts."

"Damn it!  I bellowed, 'Put that thing down!"
I explained that although truckers could use it,
Even on the plant premises,
Under this plant's Humane Slaughter program
There are some pretty strict regulations.
Plant employees aren't allowed to use a shock prod.
If they're caught driving a hog with one
They can be suspended,
And tormenting the hogs for sport
Is just begging to be fired.

Big Ned looked as shocked at this caution
As a toddler who had just been told
That playing with his penis "wasn't nice."
Finally, he gave me a searching gaze,
And with disarming sincerity
He asked me, "What's the diffrence
What we do to them now?
They're all going to be
Slaughtered today anyway."

4.
The hogs in the subject pen
Have been culled out by the hog drivers
Or the ante-mortem inspector
For the plant veterinarian to examine.
Unable to move well enough to be driven,
Feverish, shaking, dragging a broken leg,
A ruptured belly or a boken pelvis,
The fourteen hogs lay in the subject pen,
Coping with their anxiety and hurt
By huddling close to one another,
Taking comfort in each other's nearness,

Like people.

Nature Does Not Succumb to Despair

Ensnared in a net of despair,
One looks for comfort anywhere
But finds no solace anywhere,
No reason to care.

A delicate snow rose
Bares its beauty to the frost.
Its perfume wafts fragrantly
Through the frigid winter air.

Mired in a slough of despair,
Shivering branches are bare,
Landscapes loom bleak and bare,
One sees no beauty anywhere.

The first green shoots of spring
Begin their slow ascent to the light.
Despite the storm that's left us more snow,
They've faith in the warmth that will come.

Drowning in a pool of despair,
You may feel that you've nothing to give,
You may feel that you've no reason to live.
You've nothing to share.

A week after that late March snowstorm,
Daffodils poke their diffident leaves
Resolutely out of the still chill soil,
Coaxed upward by the promise of spring.

Life perserveres through half-frozen earth,
Certain that summer and warmth will come.
Love can be the light that leads to our rebirth
As well, allowing us to flower, if we ascend to it.

Nature does not succumb to despair.

Twilight Impressions

A swirling, groping, malevolent mist
Accompanied by dusk's brooding presence
Encased the pine-surrounded lagoon
In an aura of primeval terror.

My campsite was half a mile away,
The moon was full; I could see the trail.
I'm a rational man with no excuse
For my sudden feeling of nervousness.

The fog crept up from the cold lagoon
In fingering wisps of frigid fear.
The ebony-cloaked magician of night
Summoned grotesque goblins out of bushes.

My blood froze in homage to ignorance.
I was now Neanderthal Man against evil,
As nature used my sense of vilnerability
To conjure forth terrifying visions
Of powers that I felt helpless against.

The Lady Slipper

The pungent odor of moist peat;
It stuck to my boots like an ointment,
A thick black unguent of swamp.
I stepped around algae-covered pools
Of brackish, stagnant water.
Moss mottled the misshapen trunks
Of hunchbacked tamarack that wept
Aggrieved tears of needles
When I'd bump up against them.
Dismal scenery casting a depressing
Pall upon a landscape so saturated
That it quivered as I set foot upon it.

Through a bog of brittle reeds
I caught a sudden glimpse of color.
A bird?  Instantly curious, moving
Carefully so as not to scare it,
I moved closer to the feathered life.
No bird.  It was a Moccasin Flower;
This solitary pink orchid dangled
Wet with the weight of morning dew.
Fragile as a spiderweb,
Its delicate petals glistened as sunlight
Caressed them with a loving reverence.
Something beautiful, this "Lady Slipper,"
Transformed the swamp to a place
Of wonder simply by its presence there.

Loveliness encountered unexpectedly
Lingers longest in one's mind.
I think of gorgeous faces glimpsed just once
That I've pressed in the tome of my memory;
The woman who was seated nex to me
During a Peter, Paul and Mary concert,
A check-out girl at Goldfine's Grocery,
The blonde in a car stopped at a red light,
Or a captivating smile passed on the street.
Elusive as wild orchids, these Cinderellas
Have left no footwear behind for this prince
To retrieve to gallantly return to them;
Just visions of loveliness that remain
As vivid, fresh and indelible in my mind
As my only encounter with the "Lady Slipper."