1968 saw my first childhood famine, 
via shaky black and white broadcast : 
Shadows fading first so easily ignored...
Unlike the confronting colours of today.

At seven, I knew nothing of their world,
I stared at their alien cobwebbed skin,
stretched over-tented whitened bones,
Knew not of their death-waiting skeletons.

Their eyes pled from skulls shrivelling,
Imploring to the life that beats within me,
Breathing as if still alive as the rubble fell,
Only to die amidst the gunfire and dust.

Their silence then and now still 
declares the sin that is their starvation. 
But at least then the world acted.