Effects of Food

"What a surprising effect food has on our organisims. Before I ate, I saw the sky, the trees, and the birds all yellow, but after I ate, everything was normal to my eyes...I was able to work better. My body stopped weighing me down...I started to smile as if I was witnessing a beautiful play. And will there ever be a drama more beautiful than that of eating? I felt that I was eating for the first time in my life."
(Carolina Maria de Jesus).

"Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night
I should go downstairs
dump the refrigerator contents on the floor
and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk
and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet
writing poems
writing poems..." (June Jordan)

Matins (excerpt)

Marvelous Truth, confront us
at every turn
in every guise, iron ball,
egg, dark horse, shadow,
cloud
of breath on the air,

dwell
in our crowded hearts
our steaming bathrooms, kitchens full of things to be done, the ordinary streets.

Thrust close your smile
that we know you, terrible joy.

(Denise Levertov)

Revolutionary Letter #42

"what is this 'overpopulation' problem, have you
looked at it, clearly, do you know

ten times as much land needed if we eat hamburger, instead of grain; we can
all fit, not hungry, if we minimize
our needs, RIP OFF LARGE, EMPTY RANCHES, make the
                                                                                              food


nutrititious; chemical fertilizers
have to go, nitrates
poison the water; large scale machine farming
has to go, the soil
is blowing away (300 years
to make one inch of topsoil), do you know...?"

(Diane Di Prima)