Midaeum Ether

By Saul Trabal

Its mercurial nature, to curse or favor
Lifting some to greatness, slashing others as a saber
Root of life or death, of hope or despair
It can change one's future with nary a care

It can feed poor families and give them a home
It can destroy these same families in the form of a drone
A turn of its face dictates status or worth
Exalted to the heavens, made as pointless as dirt

Overflowing cupboard or bareness of plate
A turn of its face determines which fate
Hunger sated and abated, bellies filled and elated
Malnutrition to the damned, heaped upon the hated
The brown, the black, the red, forcibly mated
To poverty for generations of suffering dictated
By racism, by classism, by those holding the purse
To bask in a limousine or lay in a hearse

The need for its power is strong
For all things right and wrong
To fund a campaign for president
Food stamps for a needy resident
Terrorists plots to down skyscrapers
Sex slavery aimed at serial rapers

It can cure diseases by research funding
Raise global warming through endless plundering
Earth's coal and oil, those old fossil fuels
Their toxic effects forever in the news

We kneel at the altar of a fickle god
Dependent on its touch and approving nod
Yet when that deity denies our needs
Its rejection results in draining bleeds
Dreams, hopes and goals unfulfilled
Anguish results, spirits bowed and milled

Strength of character is needed to survive its effects
Its relentless attacks on humanity's defects
Its victims are many, all ages and positions
Cruel twists of fate putting such folks in prisons

Its influence is everywhere
Avoiding its touch a worthy dare
Few succeed, most succumb
To the shine of metal, held down by its thumb

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