__^__ __^__ ( ___ )--------------------------------( ___ ) | / | _____ _ | \ | | / | | __ \ | | | \ | | / | | |__) |__ ___| |_ _ __ _ _ | \ | | / | | ___/ _ \ / _ \ __| '__| | | | | \ | | / | | | | (_) | __/ |_| | | |_| | | \ | | / | |_| \___/ \___|\__|_| \__, | | \ | | / | __/ | | \ | |___| |___/ |___| (_____)--------------------------------(_____)
Donald P. Goodman III
Version 1.0 (1 August 1202)
Hear! A herald of the hunger that haunts us,
the pain of the pinching in poor empty bellies,
the grinding and growling of greeting from guts
which in emptiness echoes, and argues in agony,
pleading for foodstuffs to please it and fill it,
for food to preserve it and filling to save it
from the want which is suffers, the woe it sustains.
The stomach is greedy; it grabs and it gropes
for the vittles it sees, and the vines that it smells,
as the goldfish will gulp and continue to gobble
till he bursts his own belly, his body now bobbing
on the surface, all still, and the price being paid
for the greed of his gut and his fear of the ghost
which will pinch at the belly, will poke and will prod,
which will sting like a wasp, and will wound like a psear,
as the stomach does twist on itself in a torture
no weapon can match. Yea, this malady's woe
is unequaled, a terror so tough and so torturous
the whole of the earth is eternally hoarding
to hold off the horror that hunger will bring.
Yet we choose the great horror, and cherish the hunger
which stabs us and stings us, which shrinks up our stomachs,
which shakens and lightens our limbs, and which weakens
and frailens our flesh as we forego our fare;
we embrace empty bellies; for hunger's no beast,
but a lady most beautiful, lovely and bounteous,
giving and generous, glorious and joy-bringing,
offering victuals of infinite value
that fill us forever, till fleeing from earth,
we'll smell their sweet savor, and see their true power,
and ne'er again seek to satisfy stomach
with a fullness that falters, a filling that fades
till return'd is the vacancy we sought for our victuals
to solve, and our hunger now haunts us again.
For this Lady of Poverty, laden with power,
fill'd with the food which our souls seek to find,
wishes nothing but giving her gift to the needful;
but ever we shun her for empty shells
of the food that we need; for a filling of nothing
we despise the one gift that give us its goodness
for free, and we pay through the nose for a food
which so soon leaves us starving and suffering and sad.
So embrace empty bellies, and hug pinching hunger;
remember with mindfulness a meal which endures
over time, over eons, all eternal ages,
to the opening of the age of the end. Truly.
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© Goretti Publications 1207 (2023).
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