YES, THEY WERE HUNGRY

I still have pay stubs from McDonald’s
where I worked in the 1960s in high school.
I made $1.10 per hour. We were allowed
to eat for free during breaks. We gobbled
burgers and fries. At Kentucky Fried Chicken,
we were able, at closing, to take home buckets
of extra cooked chicken. It was the way of life
in Northern Virginia.

When I got drafted and chose the Navy
in 1972 to avoid Vietnam, I was assigned
to ships that traveled around the world.
On one cruise, we circumnavigated Africa,
visited Iran, Pakistan, Bahrain, Sri Lanka,
and sailed through the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean. The first stop across the
Atlantic had been in Dakar, Senegal
along the northwestern coast of Africa.

It was the blank-eyed, homeless people
living in cardboard boxes on street corners
that woke me up. Barely clothed boys
surrounded us begging for help. We were
careful to protect our Kodak cameras and
wallets. I’d never heard of a famine before.

During many port stops, it was the same:
poor, homeless and hungry people were
everywhere in struggling countries. Today,
as I sit with my family and enjoy the
abundant dinners and view the full cabinets
of food at home, I take each bite with a prayer
of thanks.

Break Bread

Break bread here,
     bake bread.
Mill the flower,
     knead the dough.

Tend the yeast,
     ​you are welcome here.
As you are,
     at this simple feast.

Set the table,
     if you are able.
Help with dishes,
     if your heart wishes.

For you are we,
     you will always be.
Welcome right here,
     for we are eternity.

After My Prayers

for me, I often have time to look
out the window at the tree-trimmed
easy lush nook of my city
and ask why the rest aren’t as lucky,
that people go hungry,
so many lining up for food,
that some in the world are starving.

I usually just stop there.
Too horrible and complex.

Last night, headlights flickered
through that delectable foliage
to my pretty-perfect apartment,
like a Morse code,
which I never took the time to learn,
and my silly woke sister
said it read:
​
Look at the plenty I have given.
And all I ask is that you share.

​Teach a Man to Fish

Teach a man to fish- fixes it all-
Right? No? Wasn't that what they taught us?
Give a man a fish and he eats for
a day. Teach a man to fish and he

eats for a lifetime. Sounds simple right?
Well, what if there is no fishing rod?
What if there is no fishing line. What
if there is no ocean or any

fish left to catch, or stove to cook on,
or knife to clean and filet them so?
What if there was no more hunger? Or
belly to fill? Or need to nourish?

What if the man knows how to fish but
chooses not to? What if that man hates
fish. Maybe, he's allergic-what's next?
Do we force-feed him the tuna raw?

Like an obstinate child. Sent to
his room without dinner, with hunger
still unsatisfied. We think we know
what's best. Open up, chew and swallow.

*Form- Clicks Syllabics- CLXXX (Roman Numeral for 180)
​(9 syllables per line, 5 stanzas, 4 lines per stanza, 180 syllables)