Cheese And Guns Poem by Karen Siewert

Cheese and guns
Cheese and guns
How to have the other without the one?

The back fields of a Wisconsin plain
Houses a large number of cattle
And even with their height and girth
It won't help much in the coming battle

Man will use them for their milk, meat and horns
Leaving the little ones with nothing to suckle
Weak, alone and sad for their mothers
They wander aimlessly ‘til their knees start to buckle

Sensing their weakness, their lack of strength
The buzzards crowd round and begin to circle
They look over the calves with expert eyes
Then they move in silently as the sky turns purple

You may think that this is the worse
That's because you don't really understand the animal curse

If you're not human, then you're here to serve man
To plow, to ride, to fight beside us, to do all he would command
That's your only real purpose
And you stand it for as long as you can
‘O Father who art in Heaven' you pray
Will there ever come a day
When I have some say
Over how I live my life, nurture my young
Get to voice what I will become?
Just these tiny, infinitesimal things I'd like to do
Long before the Day is through