Food for my humility

I lick the juice of happy mango sweetness
Pooling in my palm
Threatening to overflow
To stream across the wrist
where nerves send mixed messages
of shudder, cringe and pleasure
Flowing down my forearm
To reach a waiting hot tongue slurp
Giggles interrupting clean-up
Liquid sunshine, mango juice and skin
the taste of mirth and sensuality
I will not waste a drop

Summer warmth means messy eating is a joy

…. Then I remember desert images
      Relentless heat and oppression
      Bellies swelled with dreadful hunger and disease
      Silent children too weak and exhausted to cry

If I could reach across the distance to offer up my feast
If I could shut my mouth and only give what we so often waste
or much more
This food for my humility
Is sustenance for action
I choose the solid realities I am able here
What food I buy,
And where I buy my Christmas cards and gifts
These small things feel so feeble
But they are something
The conscience of a nation
The destruction of our world

For Christmas…
Less packaging
More push bike riding
Turn the lights off every time
No red meat on my table
Our affluence is paid for by the world
Even those who have none
And by our children
Merry Christmas
Happy mangos to all
May recycling, reduction and reflection be your gift to all of us