GRACE BEFORE MEALS

For what we are about to digest, dear Lord,

our heartfelt thanks. Though you exacted

a hefty price, demanded your pound

of muscular flesh, the sweat and blood

of our furrowed brow, at least you made

due recompense, acknowledged services

accomplished, set blackberries on their marks

for your starting gun, rendered peppers

and tomatoes incandescent, sent apple

blossoms into overdrive, triggered the ‘germinate’

function in arable lands, released

pollinators from your strategic bee reserve:

greyhounds darting from a trap.

Let us envision, as we fill voracious plates,

sower, seed, and every food-chain link

to our laden dinner table, from loam-turning

worm to home-delivery grocery bagger,

and not forgetting rain and sun that act

as guarantors that grains, herbs, fruits

and brassica will fulfil their growth potential.

Whether airlifted in burlap sacks imprinted

with a UN logo, slow-cooked as dinner stews

by working couples, picked over on first dates,

or flatbread-wrapped in sidewalk kebab carts,

let us proclaim our thanks for whatever vital

sustenance the philanthropic earth has spared us.

May these compliments to the celestial chef

not fall by the wayside, nor land on barren ground.