Noni's "Famine" is about the anxiety of preparing for hard times when you can't know whether your preparations will work. The speaker senses a famine coming and sees empty fields, so they act: they plant seeds and take up a gun to hunt. But both efforts feel uncertain. The saplings may not sprout in time, and the hunting is "aiming blind," leaving only "blanks" in the speaker's mind.
The mood is tense and restless, helped by short rhyming lines that tick like the clock the speaker mentions. Fear of starving mixes with exhaustion, and the speaker wonders what will do more harm, the hunger or a mind that only wants sleep. The ending shifts toward reassurance. If the famine passes, the speaker says, the saplings will bear seeds and the meat cellar will be full, and sleep will come. Yet the final lines admit the relief is temporary, since another famine will follow. The poem reads like a pep talk to oneself, hopeful but aware that the struggle will return.