CATTLE CALL: AN ESSAY: 11-02-08
When I lived in New Mexico, I had a horse that was boarded near a swine slaughter house. Pigs are a lot smarter than cattle, they fight what's coming.
CATTLE CALL
The searching, beseeched eyes do not want to comprehend what they see. They want to see what is not there. Nothing is rehearsed, nothing can be reversed. The entrance to the road to heaven is covered and caked with fresh and old blood. It doesn’t matter; it will all be washed away at the end of the day. The cattle on their way…
A flurry of civilized displays of authority betrays the carnage ahead. It is expressed in a familiar foreign tongue. Doom is heard in its cadence and has several meanings, one is relief, and another is surrender. A calm tempo begins among the men up on the ramps. Lips move, softly and firmly encouraging the forced movement into the unknown.
A lilting voice like a psalm is heard “Go on little doggies, go on. Go on little doggies go on…” The cattle need no prodding as they follow an unusually familiar path. Through mazes of fenced corridors going back and forth, a sense of calm spreads through the ranks. Just plodding forward, following and leading the others brings a peace to the heart.
The need to understand gently floats away, replaced by a sense of safety. Gone is the need to comprehend, replaced by a yearning to accept what makes no sense. There is meaning intended but it gives way and sinks under the thousand ideas flooding the limited space of consciousness. Yet, nothing penetrates that brings any value.
Then instinct takes hold and even the most complex mind finds trouble discerning the real from the lies, but doesn’t quit trying to form a sound reason for what is happening. The ones in charge feel no shame, they claim no blame, their motives are clean; their intentions are good. They are human and settle for what gets them by.
At the end of the day the slaughter is done two thousand head killed stripped and hung. Food for the masses, I can’t disagree. I still love beef, but it disagrees with me.