Remembering Émile, a Rooster Rescued from Kaporos
What am I to do with my wildness
Now your wings are forever folded?
I’ve been content – no, exultant – to watch your heart
so harmed by humans
Rekindle, ignite and burst forth in the flight of crimson crows.
My heart hasn’t mattered
Until
now when drenched and wrung with the weeping silence of
Arterial grief
Of your flight.
For it isn’t just that you died
It is the chasm of wildness left hanging, asking
Dancing, fallen leaves, brittle in their solitude
searching for the limb that gave them life
left fluttering in the emptiness.
Where is my wildness now?
How does a dancer whirl in the ecstasy of life
When there is no waiting hand.
– G.A. Bradshaw
Émile died at nine years of age of congenital heart failure caused by humans who sculpt the bodies and minds of Roosters to grow big and fast for profitable slaughter as babies. Along with his beloved friend Saint Baptiste and other Roosters, Émile arrived here after rescue by Dr. Karen Davis (UPC) who brought life back to thousands of Chickens and Roosters tortured and slaughtered ritualistically each year in Brooklyn, New York.
