A Daily Prayer for the Poisoned, the Blinded, the Trapped, the Shocked, the Sacrificed...
By Jean Pearson
An Animal Rights Poem from All-Creatures.org

A Daily Prayer for the Poisoned, the Blinded, the Trapped, the Shocked, the Sacrificed...
By Jean Pearson

An old book says that Adam named them before

he was cast out, that Noah herded them

into the God-driven ark so they might live.

We ate no flesh in Eden, but afterwards,

when things got hard, we forgot

the peaceful kinship of that ancient kingdom.

As our teeth sank into their flesh

we had to deny them. So we said

they had no souls, no reason, no thumbs,

no speech. We were so different. We made

a chain of things to protect us--fire, medicine,

our locking houses, many kinds of clothes.

And we renamed them--farm product, fur crop,

renewable resource. Pray that we will see

their faces again in the mirror of creation,

the miracle of animals, their clear eyes

meaning more than profit to our own.

From her book, On Speaking Terms with Earth

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