Death With Pumpkin Pie? No Thanks.

Franny from Animal Place

In the Name of Tradition 
By Heather Leughmyer 

In a smothering sea of white
Gentle beauty is lost

Born and bred to be dinner

Whatever the cost.

Debeaked, detoed, crippled and weak

Disease running rampant

Your future is bleak.

In a huge sunless warehouse

Tens of thousands crammed tight

Kept like a secret

Out of mind, out of sight.

When your body is fattened

And you collapse from the weight

You are grabbed by rough hands

And sent to your fate.

Hung by your feet

Flapping and scared

Still conscious, confused

If only they cared.

Your neck is then slit

By a mechanized blade

As life drains from your body

You’re alone and afraid.

Another beside you

Misses the knife

Still conscious, she’s boiled

Slowly ending her life.

Andrea with rescued turkey hen Clove

Neatly you are packaged

Shipped to every store

Butterball makes money

Spent breeding millions more.

Behind the tidy shrink-wrap

Is a mutilated bird

Who had feelings and emotions

And cries that went unheard.

Emily and Beatrice the turkey

In the name of “tradition”

Tens of millions will die

Somehow their sad remains

Seem so wrong with pumpkin pie.

*****

You can observe a turkey. Hold a turkey. Pet a turkey. 

You can adopt a turkey. Sponsor a turkey. 

You can save a turkey. Liberate a turkey. Or rescue a turkey.

You can bathe a turkey.

Sing to a turkey. Train a turkey. Or feed a turkey.

Farm Sanctuary 

And you can certainly love a turkey.

In fact, there are 46 million ways to honor turkeys!

But please, oh pretty please --- Don't ever, ever eat a turkey!

Pumpkin pie is much more delicious when served with kindness instead.