The Riddle of Hunger [Today's News Poem, August 5, 2010]
For L.S.
You landed on tarmac to follow the traces
Migration has stacked into boxes; abandoned
To history. Peering from awnings, near clotheslines
It watches you leave your hotel in the morning
To feed your devotion to gods of the pantry.
The concierge calls them a pest—he's requesting
You stop and consider the hunger of people
Who work here and live off the scraps that you're feeding
To cats. And the teevee is showing a Honda
For sale. And the Arabic letters are sprinting
To something—a price-tag of gibberish maybe—
To perfume and monitors; travel and trinkets.
The Pyramids stay in the desert while locals
Observe as you fill up the bellies of ferals.
And litter is everywhere. Riding the breezes
Are blizzards of plastic that cover the concrete—
So much like that pavement of home in the city
With gold in its gates and its offices roiling
With myths of creation of wealth—with the zeroes
Ascending to noumenal planes of existence.
And batting the numbers is Bast on her cushion
Of clouds, she rejects what they send her. She curses
Them slowly: their larders will empty, the vermin
Will triumph—and only for you will she spare what
Remains of a people who serviced her felines
In sands of antiquity; people who added
Their head to the predator, hoping to answer
The riddle of ages with stone in a valley.
“The ban is "a big deal" because the former Soviet Union has emerged as a major exporter on the world market, said Jerry Gidel, analyst at North America Risk Management Services, a brokerage in Chicago. Russia was the major supplier to Egypt, the world's largest importer, in the crop year that ended in May.”
– Tom Polan, The Wall Street Journal, AUGUST 5, 2010, 2:16 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100805-717766.html
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