A Feast of Choices: Exploring the Ethics and Emotions of Eating Meat Through Poetry

On the Plate of Thoughts

A banquet of thoughts spread before me,
Echoes of the earth, whispers of the sea.
What lies on the plate—a choice, a creed,
A dance of survival, hunger, and need.

The sizzle of flesh on an iron grill,
Ancestral fires that burn still.
A primal whisper calls to the bone,
Feeding a hunger, ancient, alone.

Yet, in the silence of the pasture's glow,
A lamb bleats softly, does it know?
The sharpness of blades, the final tide,
The hands that lead to the other side.

Each morsel carries a tale untold,
A shepherd’s watch, a farmer’s hold.
A fisherman’s net, a hunter’s aim,
An animal’s life, an eternal flame.

Do you hear the cow’s mournful low?
Do you see the oceans ebb and flow?
Do you taste the forest, wild and green,
In the sinews of flesh, where life has been?

For some, it's culture, a sacred rite,
Feasts of gratitude under moonlit night.
For others, it’s survival, pure and raw,
Nature's provision, tooth and claw.

But here, in my quiet modern room,
The question blooms like a flower in gloom.
Am I nourished, or am I lost?
What is the flavor of ethical cost?

I think of the pulse of the crimson vein,
The thrum of life in the falling rain.
The heartbeat stilled by a fleeting hand,
The bond between beast and the land.

I’ve stood in the market, where the butcher smiles,
Seen the blood run in meticulous piles.
I’ve touched the scales of a silver trout,
And wondered what its dreams were about.

Yet, in the taste of a roasted quail,
Lies history’s echo, humanity’s tale.
From caves to kingdoms, hearths to plates,
The cycle spins, it hesitates.

Do I abstain, a leaf in hand,
Walking softly across this land?
Or do I partake, acknowledging cost,
A shared existence, where life is lost?

There’s no singular truth on this meaty trail,
No one perspective to prevail.
It’s a tapestry woven of choice and care,
Of lives we touch, of love we bear.

So, when you ask me what I feel,
About the flesh we prepare and peel,
I’ll tell you this—each bite is a prayer,
A question lingering in the air.

To eat, to live, to choose, to tread,
To honor the living, and mourn the dead.
A banquet of thoughts spread before me,
Echoes of the earth, whispers of the sea.

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