Famine and Scarcity

My grandson, age seven, 
head bent over his crustless peanut 
butter and honey sandwich, 
small bowl of grapes, 
and orange juice, 
says these very words: 
“Heavenly Father, 
bless that there will be no famine 
or scarcity in the land.” 
And I wonder where this  
pocket prophet, this junior Jeremiah, 
has heard such biblical phrases 
and how in his sabbath of years 
he seems to understand them. 

On the evening news I see 

wasted plains 
barren trees  
bone piles of the vultures of war 
and under a tangled bush in Africa 
a mother holding her ghost of a child 
its body a collapsed puppet. 

At night when I pray my usual clichés  
for the hungry and hopeless, 
the bereaved and brutalized, 
the wrecked and wretched of the world, 
I add a few words for him 
and for all those like him who  
open their hearts 
into their small clasped hands.