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A Day in the Life of Hunger

David F Williams, PhD, DSc, FREng, FLSW
Author, Scientist & Consultant

Hunger is pervasive. We see evidence of hunger and attempts to ameliorate it most places we go, including both Winston-Salem and Cape Town.

A Day in the Life of Hunger

The neighbourhood cat
Wanders up again
Looking for food
Nothing there, nothing lost

A cockroach slides
Across the kitchen floor
Looking for food
Is stepped on, everything lost

A tramp holds his hand out
Looking for money
For food, he says
Wary passers-by know better

The single mother
Works all hours
To earn money to buy the food
For three starving infants

The lion’s distended belly
Of three days ago
Gorging on a gnu
Now empty and hungry again

The Wall Street financier
His belly always rotund
Satisfies his hunger
With a hedge and fries

A restaurant in Beijing
Serves course after course
To the drunken elite
And throws away the rest

Rubble in Aleppo
Mud slides in Mexico
Floods in Bangladesh
No food or water for millions

Hunger for some
Distaste for others
Feast or famine
Or famine on famine

North Carolina, USA, May 2014

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