BREAD:

Earth dug under sun & cloud,

Water, weeded, hoed & ploughed,

Seeds sown deep in dark quiet sod,

Each in its tiny skin-bed pod.

Green shoots tender & new,

Growing tall under morning dew,

Harvested & threshed into silken flour,

By men, beasts & machines of power.

Packed in sacks, baskets, boxes & bags,

 Globally sent to the rich, & to those in rags,

Mixed with blenders in first-world lands,

Kneaded with love by third-world hands.

Simple flour given by earth,

Man´s staple food given birth,

Maintaining life all over the world,

For every man, woman, boy & girl.

Dough baked in ashes, ovens, homes & shops,

Roasted, or in dollops into hot fat drops,

Chapatti, baguette, loaf, naan or roll,

All from nature´s own mixing bowl.

Sprinkled with sugar, nuts, seeds or salt,

Others with herbs & added milk or malt,

Most just flour & water plain,

To relieve the world´s hungry unending pain.

Maligned by beauties trying to slim,

Manna to the child of just bone & skin,

Let us give, & let us share,

Daily bread with our neighbours everywhere.

Fragrance of baked, hot new breads,

Like new mown grass & coffee, go to our heads,

But to the world I live in, I must implore,

Please let us give more daily bread to the poor.

From seed to mill, - from silo to table,

Destiny, be mud pot, or supermarket label,

Staple to both man & swine,

Sating hunger of both theirs & mine.