: Shifting desert sandS :
a plea to end world poverty)

the mad happy woman
on finding some food
amongst the dry ashes of famine,
stuffs the precious dew
into the mouth of the last child,
whose teeth are clenched,
stiff with death.

the endurance of her suffering
slid softly as a silk-worm's thread,
to embed its talons into her head,

and

she fell back in a role to the earth,

to lay, eyes fixed into the sun,
awaiting that which had her undone.

© John-Wesley Harding