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The title “A Cry for Mercy: The Silent Witnesses of Our Greed” establishes themes of environmental suffering and human consumption, introducing “silent witnesses” like animals affected by greed. Imagery of “dingy cages” and “hollow eyes” evokes despair, setting a somber mood for a poem that addresses the consequences of human actions on the natural world.

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In dingy cages, dark and cold, they wait,
Locked tight within a fate they can’t escape,
With hollow eyes, they witness love’s cruel fate,
As every breath becomes a silent scrape.

The geese and ducks, confined in tiny cells,
Force-fed until their livers swell and fail,
Afflicted with a cirrhosis that foretells
A bitter end, their suffering unveiled.

And countless creatures, ermine, mink, and fox,
Are hunted down, their lives for fashion torn,
Their fur becomes the coat that vainly mocks
The agony from which it has been born.

The mighty whales, near hunted to the brink,
For oil and meat, their numbers nearly gone,
Now swim in seas where shadows darkly sink,
A memory of life that once was strong.

The rhinoceros, with horns prized more than gold,
Hunted down for myths of medicine,
Their numbers fall, their stories seldom told,
A testament to man’s relentless sin.

Tigers, pangolins, and countless others
Are slaughtered for a cure that holds no truth,
Their deaths a scar upon the earth that smothers
The gentle grace of innocence and youth.

The elephants, for ivory, are slain,
Their tusks a trophy of a heartless trade,
While sharks, finned live and tossed back to the pain,
Sink slowly down, their ocean tombs now made.

With burgeoning humans spreading far and wide,
We decimate the species of this earth,
And countless lives are lost to greed and pride,
As nature suffers from this ruthless dearth.

Yet in the heart of tribes, a wisdom glows,
They know the ways to live with flora, fauna,
To coexist with all that breathes and grows,
In harmony, where peace is their Nirvana.

We should learn from them and emulate
Their ways of life, in balance with the land,
Control our greed, our numbers, and our fate,
So all of God’s creations hand in hand.

For every fur-lined coat, a spirit breaks,
For every feast, a life is torn apart,
For every trophy, every pill man takes,
A whisper dies within the forest’s heart.

O, man, insatiable in dark desire,
What profit in the suffering you sow?
When will you see, beyond your selfish fire,
The cost of life, the agony of woe?

So hear the silent cries, the plea for grace,
From those who share this earth, this sky, this sea,
And end the slaughter, see them face to face,
For they, like you, just long to live and be.

The world would be a place of light and song,
If humans learned to tread with gentler ways,
To cherish life and right what we’ve done wrong,
To let compassion guide us through our days.

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