The Silent Code Of The Animal Farm Poem by Hannington Mumo

The tricky question of how many animal farms we have
May be more complicated than most of us think;
There are at least some fifty-five animal farms in the world
Where wild mammals play and eat and drink.

And although there lightning is feared more than law,
These farms all seem to have the selfsame collective code.
Since different from the mainstream law, we may call it lore:
The silent cipher that governs the primitive farms.

There everyone is entitled to their share of breath
As long as they breathe within their native home,
Breathing within the territories of other beasts
Wins you mob lynching according to the animal tome.

No animal may acquire such vast knowledge
As to threaten the rule of the Elephant and the Lion.
The acquisition of illegal learning only leads
To the doom Artemis wreaked on the restless Orion.

There you must not shout of forbidden things
Such as animal rights and equality of beasts oppressed;
For it is clearly stated by the immutable silent code
That some mandrills are more equal than the rest.

A beast of worth begets offspring of the same worth;
If a beast be an outcast born, the same must a pariah remain.
No animal may rise from the bottom to the aristocratic realm:
No beast must such thoughts of improvement entertain.

The lore of the mandrills is not lean,
As said, these codes make a huge-volume tome
Which you can't leaf through in a day,
Though you may get a copy and read at home.

Yet the problem is that censorship there is tough
And as such the lore has never been put in print;
The few Cheetahs who championed for a free press
Were one by one snuffed without a hint.