It usually happened in summertime
Hot humid winds
Out of the west
Blew east
Over the city of Chicago
To the shores of Lake Michigan
Bringing with them
A stench
From the Chicago stockyards
The slaughter houses
There
Stench
A word from my childhood
Spoken by the adults
Around me
The words stockyard
Slaughter house
I understood surrounded cows
Waiting to be killed
For meat
Now rationed by World War II
It had no impact on me then
Until
A photograph in a magazine
A holding pen
With cattle crammed together
Waiting for slaughter
Made me sorrowfully aware
Of what the west winds
Signified
The Chicago stockyards
The slaughter houses
Long gone
But not holding pens
Slaughter houses
In other places
Cattle crammed so tightly
Together
None hardly move
I have stopped eating meat
There’s a stench
Here
An awful stench
Here
Words from a TV commentator
A congresswoman from the House of
Representatives
They face a large enclosure
Like a cage a true
Cage
Inside a hundred or
More
Immigrant men
Standing shoulder to shoulder
No room to sit to lie down
To sleep
A few fortunate ones on the
Floor
They stand looking out
The TV camera
Records their faces
Some raise their arms
Silent
Helpless
Seeing these immigrant
Men
Crammed together in that
Cage
I think back on my
Childhood
To the west winds
Blowing to the east
Over Chicago
On hot humid summer
Days
And remember the stench
I remember the stench
And what that stench
Means
I remember
This is superb! It should be sent to all 535 members of our Legislature.
Agreed!
truth. so much truth. thank you for sharing grandma wendy.