This poem is dedicated to all the children of this world who are hungry. The definition of the hunger varies and
it depends upon children to children. Some are hungry for food, some are hungry for love, some are hungry for
knowledge, while others are hungry for peace, and the hunger list moves on and on. And one more thing, you
can use this poem anywhere you like, in your website,in your column, in your blog, in your article, in your story,in your class, and just anywhere without my permission because though this poem is written by me, it is written for you all in an effort to change the world, though I know,
a little poet as me can never change the world, but if we all unite, who knows.

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“Mother, we are hungry!”
Our stomach is sallow
and we can walk no more.

The smog of hunger’s incense
stifles our existence
and the quenchless fire
of thirst glows in our soul.

Mother, if you don’t mind,
say it to us, only to us, in secret,
“Why does the hunger
always whirl in our stomach,
and run from colon to the core?”

Ah, O Mother,
tell us, why it doesn’t
have the wings?
“Tell us, why it doesn’t
roll away
as the waves of the sea?”

Mother, they say,
the mystery of our existence
is written
on this little forehead of ours.

Mother, they say,
our rice fields
are full of landmines
and we cannot grow crops.

Mother, they say,
Our young brothers and sisters
have migrated to foreign land
because of the civil war,
leaving only the elderly
to take care of our farms.

Mother, they say,
we are hungry
because we are poor
and we don’t have money
to buy food from the store.

Mother, they say,
The World Bank is deaf,
UNICEF is blind,
and the F.A.O is dumb.
Is this really true my mother?

Mother, some say,
we are hungry
because of the geo- politics.
Mother, they say,
we are starving
because of the
free trade policy measures
implemented by our government
to go hand in hand with the world
under the WTO norms.

Mother, some even say,
we are hungry
because they are building
a house in the moon.
We are hungry
because they are building
tunnels after tunnels
in the desert
to hear their nuclear tunes.

Mother, they say,
we are hungry
because of the extremists
no matter,
wherever they wage terrorism.
We are hungry
because men are not men,
they have only human forms.

Mother, I don’t know the truth.
But tell us; tell us, O mother,
if all this be true
then we will
neither mourn for our hunger
nor blame you.

Ah! O Mother,
before we go up in the sky,
where the stars are.

Say it to us, only to us,
in secret, “Why not the hunger
floats in our stomach
as the pristine mass of an oil
dancing over the serene core of the water?”

She smiled sadly and said,
‘Ah, shame!’
“The gravity of the hunger
is very perilous.
Man is born hungry,
and will die hungry
in the world’s dusty theater,
where the play of desire
runs houseful forever.”

They glanced at her and said,
‘What a shame,
humanity has turned its back on us,
and the ray of hope lay deserted
on its own solitary course.’

They have forgotten
to comb our hair
though before the world
we stripe naked
with sunken eyes
and trodden hope.
But yet we don’t blame you,
for our hunger, O proud world!

Daily we go to the temple,
light our lamps,
and pray for you all.
But our prayers are shut up
within the bricks of the temple.
Ah! Even God doesn’t want to help us.
But yet, in God we do trust.

Much have you given us,
O the mighty Lord,
Yet we ask for more –
We come to you not only
for the food to soothe our hunger
but to sing our last song,
‘The song of the children
gone much ahead before their time,
to sing the chorus of life
with the funeral pyre.’


Copyright 2006 Bhuwan Thapaliya