Hunger
By John Herlihy

We think we know all about hunger,
The hunger that can drive us mad,
A raging hunger that feels like thunder,
That takes away any satisfaction that made us glad.
There is nothing like hunger to make a person sad,
Tossed aside and thrown away, onto a steaming heap,
Alone, nothing left, hungry, it’s enough to make you weep.

Children don’t fret about feeling hungry.
When hunger strikes, they throw their sheets asunder.
They run and fill their mouths with nutritious wonder.
Creamy yoghurt with rice, the smoothness of chocolate milk,
Lollipops, pretzels, and roasted marshmallows that feel like silk,
They just gobble down more of everything in sight,
Like locusts eating leaves as a break from their flight.

As an infant I turned to my mother hungry and alone;
By instinct, I sought out the bosom that under her cloth bloomed,
To drink the white nectar Mother Nature had graciously gathered,
A nutritious wonder that I suckled to my heart’s delight.
Then slept contentedly in the shadow of her watchful sight.
No doubt I roamed through dreamy forests in search of adventure,
With dragons and unicorns with whom I enjoyed indenture.

The plenitude of satisfaction is destroyed by the hunger of desire.
A thousand flames couldn’t burn away hunger’s solitary fire
A thousand thieves couldn’t steal away its gnawing thunder.
Little by little, like water, a hole grows deep inside from hunger,
The hunger is a burning and I am burning like an abandoned bride.
The hunger is a hole and I am falling deep, deep down,
Into an eternal darkness far in the depths of the everlasting ground.

I have a hunger deep inside to lift aside the blessed veil;
I have a hunger to drink deeply a draft from the Holy Grail.
None of my latent desires have the wherewithal to inspire.
The richness that hunger offers when it comes to spiritual desire.
There are mysteries surrounding us we have never fully fathomed,
Occasionally a miracle happens to shatter the illusion of our wanting,
Then reverence will replace hunger as though it had never happened.