The Internet and my blog offer the opportunity for a new kind of poem, the living and evolving poem, a poem that evolve and change and reflect different realities and feelings.  This one is a living poem, it first appeared  under the title “And Then, They Came For The Ponies.”

 

Then, The Animals Were Safe

First, the angry people came for the carriage horses,

and no one spoke out,

because they didn’t know about horses, and  how they lived.

They didn’t know

that horses have always loved to work with people.

Then, they came for the ponies, who gave rides to children,

and no one spoke out,

because they said it was cruel for children to ride the ponies in small circles.

And then they came for the old horses in the old cities,

who brought vegetables to the neighborhoods

in their carts, because work was wrong, and work was cruel,

and the old horses were gone.

And then they came for the donkeys, who hauled firewood,

and gave rides

for quarters and dimes. It was wrong, they said,

for the donkeys to haul firewood,

they must live in nature, or on rescue farms, and not among people

in cities and towns.

Then, because work was cruel, they came for the police horses,

because horses do not belong in the city,

and no one spoke out,

because the carriage horses were already gone.

And they came for the elephants in the circus,

because it was cruel for elephants to be in the circus,

and soon the elephants were gone,

left in the vanishing wild to meet the poachers.

And then, they came for the animals who worked in the movies,

the horses and the goats and dogs, they said it was cruel for

animals to work in the movies, they should only be on farms,

in the wild, grazing freely,

and the horses were sent away,

to die in slaughterhouses.

Then, they came for the barn cats,

and no one spoke out, because no one knew what the lives of barn cats were like,

the angry people said they must live like children,  be confined and safe and dependent.

Then they came for the outdoor cats,  they said

they should not be free any longer, they would hurt the birds, or come to harm.

Then, they came for the border collies, because they frightened the sheep,

and worked in heat and cold,

and because animals should not ever work,

with human beings,  for sport or money.

Then, they came for the breeders, because dogs must never be bred or sold,

they can only be rescued, and breeding is cruel and inhumane,

and the border collies and Labrador Retrievers

and Jack Russell terriers and Pit Bulls vanished from the world.

Then, they came for the bomb-sniffing dogs,

because dogs must not work, do not belong in train stations and airports,

they must live the natural lives of dogs,

and then, they came for the seeing-eye dogs, because it is wrong for animals to work,

it is not the natural life of a dog, they must be safer than people.

Then, they came for the therapy dogs, because work is unnatural, and no one spoke out.

And then, when there were no horses, and no Labrador Retrievers, and there were no seeing-eye dogs,

and search and rescue dogs and therapy dogs,

and no border collies on the farms or in the field,

or ponies in the cities, or elephants in the circus, or donkeys or horses on farms or pulling wagons,

or fish in their tanks in the stores,

they came for your horse and your dog, for your milking goat,

for your barn cat and outdoor cat, for your cow and steer,

The angry people came for the pet stores and the petting zoos,

the dairy farmers, the aquariums,  the mice and rats in the laboratories,

the people who raised rabbits for meat,

or pigs for food.

And soon, there was no work for animals to do,

no people brave enough or rich enough to be able to keep them..

One day, the animals had vanished from the lives of ordinary people,

and the hearts of the people and their children were broken,

they lost their dream friends and mystical companions,

and the angels wept in frustration and sorrow at a world,

where animals lived only in rescue places,

inside houses and apartments,

on cable news channels

and internet videos,

the only places safe enough for them, the only places that could afford them,

the only way people could afford to see them.

All the angry people had won.

All the animals were safe.

All the animals were gone.