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Hunger It’s only in the last year, really that I’ve allowed myself to think about it – about what it might have been actually like There. I’ve permitted myself to read. And once, late, past midnight, to view photographs posted on the internet: stark black and whites, three of each person one from each side, one full front. Although I was not allowed to stop and examine them closely, some details were inescapable. A woman’s wiry hair matted into a halo around her head as though she had just been used to mop the floor; Fear, thinly disguised as intellect, peering shadowlike though wire-rimmed spectacles; Fear, bursting beneath a black silk bosom. Fear in every eye that catches mine. They know. They all know. The photos I was looking for were not posted. Perhaps there was no time for foolery and cameras on that day. With each morsel of knowledge I gain, my hunger grows. I’ve never been able to throw even a potato skin away but now the pots of leftovers in the fridge whisper insistently to me in the night. I stumble into the kitchen not an hour after dinner and gorge myself on cold pasta, congealed beans, a sandwich with questionable mayonnaise which has been to a picnic at the river and back and spent a week in repose wrapped in sandy tinfoil on the second shelf, pink slices of ham, the flesh tearing as I hastily extract them from the plastic encasing, explaining (as I push the soft folds into my mouth) to the air that it is allowable to break kosher in cases of emergency. The more I know, the more I need to atone, to stuff my gullet, round my body into curves and counter curves. I’m doing it now, I tell you. I’m eating a bagel as I write, the seeds dripping onto the paper, cream cheese smudging the corner as I turn the page, plate resting on the hill of my belly. eating as if sheer gluttony were the antidote to starvation. I bought half a dozen this morning and the three that are left are calling to me, plaintively twining their poppy seeded fingers through the razor wire, begging. Click on the file below to listen to Grace read her poem: 
 Filmmaker and poet Grace Beeler lives in Hillsborough NC. She is the director of After the Rain, an NGO which houses both the Appropriate Sanitation Institute and the Triangle Refugee Film Project. When she is not teaching ESL at Durham Tech Community College she spends her time advocating for refugees and cleaning up urban waterways in the developing world.
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She Came for Brisket but left with Ravioli She came for brisket but left with ravioli, a bag of oranges and a loaf of bread Disappointed to have her expectations dashed Too late for the brisket and the hot buttery rolls -- But the warm ravioli soothed and comforted her soul.  Margaret Brittingham is a Professor of Wildlife Resources at Penn State University where she teaches ornithology and conducts research on birds. She is part of a team that volunteers at the Community Café in State College, Pa, an excellent cooperative endeavor that provides weekly meals to the community.
This poem was inspired by an event that occurred in early February. The café usually serves about 150 meals per night, but on this particular evening, the word was out that the café was serving brisket and homemade rolls. Instead of the usual 150 meals, we had requests for 200 meals. The rule for the café is “If you think you might run out of food,... don’t”. As we watched the brisket and rolls disappear, we pulled out the emergency supply of ravioli and cooked a delicious substitute meal for the late arrivals. The next week, I attended the GLAG poetry session and was inspired to write this poem. GLAG = Global Learning in Agriculture, an annual conference sponsored by Pennsylvania State University -- Global Learning in Agriculture Week | #GLAG21: Taking Action (psu.edu) |
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