by Marcus Colasurdo

Is most often, enough.
A set of shelves, semi-stocked:
  pasta tuna soup
  rice corn beans-
   or that throbbing white electric giant,
       a magnetized 
    miracle in itself,
  an arctic high rectangle 
protecting milk and butter,
  cheese and eggs,
fierce lawyer of leftovers.
A small abundance is enough;
  For I have had long hungry nights,
  childhood belly growls
  when the larder sighed
     its empty apologies
and the freezer opened
   unto a vacant boneyard.
So know
  that if I am asked to sacrifice,
      I share
If I am tasked to fast,
      I feast.
If I am pushed toward less,
      I begin to grow.
Let us be clear:
   abundance is the song of the earth-
and just a few notes of that music
  is all I need,


                                most often.

Marcus Colasurdo is the author of 11 books and a member of Anthracite Unite. Over the years, he has worked as varied as Los Angeles taxi-cab driver to Job Corps counselor. He is the founder of the Soul Kitchen, a community meals and clothing program (in Baltimore, MD and Hazleton, PA) that currently feeds 400 folks monthly and provides various other much-needed items to needy folks in those communities.

Also by Marcus Colasurdo: Bakery; Making Masks; The Simple Justice of Eating; Unchained Pierogis; Sanitation; Anthracite; Letter of Transit