30 hours without food
Is very hard to do
Even if (shh!) it’s only 29
Because of a timely springing forward

We gripe, we complain
Until our pastor tells us to hush
He reads the list of banned things
Deodorant—toothpaste—shoes—
Surely this is a joke.

But over the next 29 hours
We learn, we grow
To find that maybe it isn’t so hard
To starve
For a better life
For others

We learn
That walking two miles
Seems a lot more when it isn’t a statistic,
And when carrying four gallons of water.
That the Lost Boys in Sudan
Survived 10 years of this hunger,
That we can do so much more.

22 by 22 the people walk
“Every time you are hungry, draw 22 stick
people, for the 22,000 that die of hunger
every day”
Lines upon lines, our little army walks
To find some the hidden panacea
For the world’s most impossible problem.

At 5:30, our fast is broken
We gorge on bread and soup,
Saying of how glad we are
For food.

Back to our homes,
But (maybe) forever changed
We (try) to think more often of those who have not
Rather than we, who have it all.

Sometimes, we still remember
The hunger pangs
The strange smells
The aching soreness
That propel us—
That force us
To make a change.