Lynne GoldsmithIn Honor of Sloths
Animal Rights Poetry By Lynne Goldsmith From All-Creatures.org

Poems of compassion dedicated to the non-human animals who share this planet with us and the people who fight for them.

In Honor of Sloths
By Lynne Goldsmith

Who said you are Sin—
that mortal kind—
clinging to cecopria tree?

You are not human—
have nothing to do
with Evagrius, ascetic

of the third century—
no, you go way beyond
to 35 million years ago

megatherium you were called,
six-metric-ton body roaming
through forests, savannahs to

how could they fault you
for their own human waywardness,
as in Chaucer, Dante,

Saint Thomas Aquinas,
who equated you with
human vapidness,

lack of feeling, so-called
dulling of spiritual progress,
some kind of failure

as if you’re not doing
what you’re supposed to,
as if you’re lacking, shirking,

wasting time when what it is
is your loving trees, rainforest,
eating of leaves

glorifying sun above humans’
cultivation of coca plant
to fuel greed—their cocaine

habit rising to take you down
to—you do everything right

before humans
misattribute sin.

©Lynne Goldsmith, 2021

Sloth
Image from pixabay.com

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