INTRODUCTION: Last June 2020, when animal activist – and friend for forty years – Regan Russell was killed or murdered at Fearman’s Slaughterhouse in Burlington, I wrote a cycle of five poems which was included in this blog later last summer. On the anniversary of Regan’s death on June 19, 2021, I wrote two new poems, the first – FOR REGAN, JUNE 19, ONE YEAR AFTER – being a poem of loving remembrance. The second poem, in five small sections, -REGAN DIED ONE YEAR AGO, THIS JUNE 19 – is one which Ingrid Newkirk of PETA told me was “moving and right and righteously angry.” The two poems follow below in that order.
FOR REGAN, JUNE 19, ONE YEAR AFTER
for Mark, Pat, and Bill
“..all I want to do is tell people to DO SOMETHING for her,
carry her torch by DOING.” …Ingrid Newkirk
—————————————-
She was made of a love beyond any pride or vanity,
a giving love plain and secure.
I knew her in a deep unspoken place, where words
surrender their intentions to silence, and silence
speaks a bonding I have no words to describe.
We were lucky, both of us, to love cats, feline friends
who see beneath our camouflage of words, and still
come close. In time, they seem to say, “I am safe here,
I will not be wounded if I put down my guard, I need
no weapon for defense, beside you I am already safe.”
Regan and I loved to talk about our cats, endlessly.
We knew our cats trusted us, because they knew
us deep. And when they took us into their grasp,
where we could be silly, unguarded, and open
to their care – it was a place where they could have
their way with us – and we felt a freedom, for an
hour or two, from the burdens of the world on us.
We were free somehow as they dangled us like
puppets. We did not win, we did not lose, we felt
honoured to be valued and trusted by cats – we would
never let them down. But how brief is our trust in
most people of the world – once broken, our trust learns
only, looking behind itself, to get through the day
Yet sometimes another person gives us ease,
and we need no pretense as we too often do.
We know the other has unchangeable wounds and
is trying, still, to be kind. Such kindness lets us dare
to hope and, harder still, to be loved. When my trust,
unspoken, was valued high and given back to me,
I knew myself new again and glad to be alive.
So many of us exist, washed over by self-deceptions.
We need fantasies to call ourselves real. The
cruelties we see are too much for us. And why do
we, willful, cause pain, why do we kill, why are we
so often lowly and mean? Would the earth not be
better off without us? For every animal is equal to us.
And if you would talk religion or philosophy,
when you speak of humans and other animals, go
stand knee-deep in slaughterhouse blood, and learn,
in this hidden killing place, good reason to be kind.
But we are bound to this world. We cannot change
our species, we cannot, with honest hearts, abide the
rottenness we can be. Still, Regan’s existence was
a blessing to her world where we live – and to me.
I admired you, Regan. You took on the world
endlessly, that it might put away its cruelties and
knives. You lived unbending passion for animals,
you loved with a bowman’s accuracy and took good aim.
You made a large mark of your beautiful self on all of us.
Some days the suffering, you were witness to, might
drape your spirit in despair. But you were more a bold,
enduring light. It showed us, bright, the kindness that
our species can become, and must – must – forever be.
It is your heart that stays with us, even within the
unbearable pain of your dying. It is your heart that
now speaks for us. You were driven by compassion
and your love would not be silenced. Your love
for all the living would have its way. You looked
each cruelty in the eye and offered all your love,
though each animal’s suffering hurt you through
and through. To truly honour your spirit and cause,
we must vow, all of us, to have a heart like you.
Wherever your spirit may be woven into darkness,
now, I touch a cat and know that you are dancing free.
I touch a cat and know, once again, that I touch your
heart. In your heaven of cats and pigs, chickens, fish,
and cattle, know that we understand life’s value as you
understood. Your compassion guides us, from this day.
© 2021, James Strecker
REGAN DIED ONE YEAR AGO, THIS JUNE 19
1.
I read this account of her dying:
The driver sets up his kill. He sees
Regan clearly and studies all her
moves, left and right. Then he
accelerates, digs his foot into the floor.
His truck becomes a weapon of
misogyny, masculine and gutless. Her
body is now his trophy, crushed in
bloody pieces through the asphalt below.
His speed has broken the law, but police,
duty-bound to be here, stay away.
Has her body become a trophy for
killer and police somehow? The facts
are plain, this was murder. The killer
walks free to kill again, his charges
show contempt for us, for Regan’s
cause – careless driving, nothing more.
2.
We’ve become a people that looks the
other way. We vote what proves
deceiving con men to govern us, to
make their cowardly laws so we can
have no say. When they, uncaring
and blasé, destroy our lives and
land, we do not condemn the venom
of their presence, we do not stand
tall in dignity’s name. We feel no
shame for words we do not say.
And my poem becomes a beggar for words.
It fails to spit defiantly on these artisans
of death: to spit upon free their enterprise
and its fawning, doormat government.
Yet we, in feeble silence, despise you
“buddies” for profit at any cost, who gag
compassion for cattle and swine – and for
women beaten and raped, for men who
decay in their needy old age, for children
molested, abused, and forever terrified.
The powerless living are condemned by you.
3.
It is our government that idly wills more
suffering than any living flesh can endure. I
dare you give your own helplessness to the
malice of these men who make their laws
of ego, profit, and, for you, disdain. One
day, at their mercy, you will understand
their purpose for greed so well, that
you, in despair, will beg and plead to die.
But are you made of equal measure
that would wound and disembowel
them until, like pigs in slaughterhouse,
they scream endlessly? I warn that you
have these human enemies: they are
your fatal disease, they are your hell.
4.
At three in the morning, it is aloneness
we feel. We look into darkness and our
memories of the dead we loved so much
stand firm beside the living we look
upon and despise. We become
entrenched with impotent sadness, we
feel unworthy to smile, as we allow these
butchers and murderers their way.
But have you, like Regan, a word
that is tender in love for the tormented,
beautiful swine she gave her own life
to save? Have you, like Regan, seen
all life’s beauty and meaning spoken
soft in one pig’s eyes? Have you a well
grounded curse that will forever damn
the cowards who conceal her murderers?
5.
Regan might walk with justice among
us now, if Region of Halton upheld the
law. Still, Mr. Premier, do not assume we
shall look the other way. Your Bill-156
has deemed compassion a crime. I twice
wash my skin when you call us your
“friends” and shed your cynic’s tears.
Yes, Regan had more balls than any
man, like you, Mr. Premier. And when
she died to fight your hush-hush, cunning,
strategy, she dealt an open hand of
compassion, she exemplified humanity.
Without your façade of politics, without
the laws you have twisted into your own,
she wrote disgrace beside your name.
Regan stood, long-lasting and fearless,
for the standards of human worth you
are too empty to reveal with humane
heart. Regan was courage, integrity,
decency, she gave her deepest love
for all of life. Regan offered a boldly
merciful heart that beats for all the
living, not merely a trifling, greedy deceit
that creeps along too cowardly for shame.