Don't Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You


Do not eat a creature that can run away from you.

Is that too much a task to ask?

Chances are that if it can – if it can run,

And running’s not from simple fun,

It’s scared, has pain, a brain like yours.  It’s suffering.

So if it relays to legs four

To spring from harm and/or from killing,

My admonishment is this: be willing

To NOT eat this thinking, feeling, fleeing treat.

It is not mete to turn this flesh into a meal,

Make an object from a subject that can feel;

Act unmasks the cruel toxicity of villainry,

Defeats the heart of mercy,

Ergo,

Do not eat the thing that seeks to run away from you.

*I first heard George Osawa, the creator of macrobiotics say it in Chico, California 1963.

Don’t Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You 4.19.2018 Nature In & Of Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin