der funfte

I was at the grocery store today picking up some thanksgiving stuff and there were all these people walking around with boxed up turkeys in their carts. On every box big letters showed the name of my home town. Something strange happened every time I saw that word on the side of those boxes. I felt pride. I felt a knowing. I felt a little regret that probably nobody else rolling one of those frozen birds around in their carts knew what I knew about where they came from. They probably had no idea about the great oak trees with their spanish moss. They probably had no clue of the sound of the rattlesnake grass in summer. Their eyes would not have known to look for the hidden ribbons of black obsidian and pockets of red pumice in the dirt. These were a few of the things that in that grocery store, only the turkeys and I knew. This moment was stalled by the thought which immediately followed. I thought of the thousands of lives and liters of blood, feathers, heads, feet, and guts that must have been left behind after being cut loose back home. I thought of the hands of humans and a conveyor belt of birds strung up by their feet, throats slit and blood draining. I decided then to write it all down and to ask for a moment of silence. Actually, a few moments if you have them: one for the birds, one for the people whose hands held, fed, culled and cleaned each turkey, and one for the land which has absorbed this blood year after year. As if it is something it just has to do. As if there is no choice.