I have a book of Tom McGrath’s poems titled “Death Song.” Published the year after the Sheldon poet had died, it contains a large number of shorter poems, some written with a lot of impact. The following selection appears here only in part. What is unique about it is the fact that he wrote it from the viewpoint of the cattle that have been hauled to slaughter. Did the stock pens standing onetime in Sheldon alongside the railroad tracks influence his thoughts?
SLAUGHTERINGHOUSE MUSIC
First, we feel the train
Slowing.
Then we see the pens as the train stops.
The doors open.
We leave the excrement-covered floors
Of the cattle cars and the stench of our journey.
A joy to stand in the ankle-deep dust and dried dung of the yards!
Sun?
And a high blue sky!
We blink in the glare of light and our cries go up:
Bellowings, snorts, grunts, whines, farts and whinnys -
A bedlam of many languages lifts toward heaven.
Then we stampede to the watering troughs and the sparse food.
As evening grows out of the earth,
Uneasy in the failing light
We push at the fences …
Moaning and bleating,
Sending our separate cries
Into the open range beyond the wire…
A kind of singing in all our languages
Out…
Into the desolation-
The emptiness that we once thought was home.
…
The last section of this piece talks of letting a few cattle at a time enter the killing floor where those waiting outside hear, “a dull thudding as of wood mauls on wood stumps.” One strike of the heavy hammer against their head was all it took.
…
The picture shows part of my collection of McGrath’s poetry. Other materials such as newspaper clippings are not pictured. Given my advancing age, what will I ever do with them?
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