Hunting and Gathering

Photograph: Maria, middle daughter

Our basic instincts to hunt and gather food
are subverted into hunting and gathering money and things.
Intuition and talent for finding what we need
now searches out bargains rather than food and water.
Though we have more than we need we are dissatisfied.

Instead of hoarding food, we hoard money and stuff,
telling others where to find good deals or new gadgets.
We give money to charities hoping to appease our hunger
and give useless objects as gifts to those we love
in order to believe we are helping them survive.

It is our hunger that has become perverted.
Our bodies crave natural and fresh nutrients
but we are too busy gathering money and stuff to feed it.
We arrange our things around a table laden with emptiness
and wonder why we want, crave, yearn for something more.

Our days are spent hunting for gold
while we gulp down sugar-water and cardboard hoping to feel full.
We do a great disservice to the rest of the world
who still know how to hunt and gather their daily bread.
Yet we call them primitive and underdeveloped.

God forgive us for preaching our doctrine of survival and success
that hinges on how much money we have gathered
and how many bargains we have hunted down and even killed for.
We are the ones who are starving and unhappy,
if only we could call off the hunt long enough to realize it.

Plant a garden instead of buying something that looks like food,
eat what you’ve grown yourself instead of what’s been manufactured in factories,
hoard home-grown food, eat what is healthy and real.
Only then will we no longer hunger for that which will never fill.

©Sharron R. McMillan