Thankful for just enough

To the editor: 

There's injustice in so many people having to choose between which necessity of life they can afford — nutritious food or shelter? Meanwhile, the more that giant-grocer corporations and corporate officers make, all the more they irresistibly want to and likely will make next quarter. It's never enough.

We also see this notably appalling reality through the proliferating over-reliance on food banks. Unmet food needs that are exacerbated by unrelenting food-price inflation, while corporate profits and payouts to CEOs correspondingly inflate.

I'd personally be quite willing to consistently say grace every day of every year if everyone on Earth had enough clean, safe drinking water and nutritional food to maintain a normal, healthy life. I’d also be pray-fully “thankful” if every parent of a seriously ill child would be spared losing them.

Since we're clearly failing at that, the following rhyme is for the growing number of people for whom there's nothing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, or any other day of the year:

Pass me the holiday turkey, peas / and the delicious stuffing flanked / by buttered potatoes with gravy / since I’ve said grace with plenty ease / for the good food received I’ve thanked / my Maker who’s found me worthy. // It seems that unlike the many of those / in the unlucky Third World nation / I’ve been found by God deserving / to not have to endure the awful woes / and the stomach wrenching starvation / suffered by them with no dinner serving. // So please hand me the succulent corn / the cranberry sauce, fresh baked bread / since for my grub I’ve praised the Lord / yet I need not hear about those born / whose meal I’ve been granted instead / as they receive / naught of the grand hoard. 

Frank Sterle Jr.