The Same Old River

Gather 'round and listen close, I've got a tale to tell Of rising prices at the pump and the ringing of a bell The Federal Reserve is meeting, with a worried, heavy hand Whispering of interest rates to cool a fevered land Your mortgage and your market loans, they hold them in their sway To tame the beast of inflation for another passing day On Capitol Hill the gavels fall on tables made of oak A house divided by a line, a promise nearly broke

They're arguing a spending bill, a shutdown's drawing near And fill the air with empty words of fury and of fear The left hand fights the right hand, and the center cannot hold It's a story that I've heard before, a story centuries old Oh, the ink is new upon the page, the headlines flash and gleam But it's the same old river flowing, just a slightly different stream The struggle for the power, and the struggle for the gold The same old human story, brave and tired, young and old

Out west where futures are designed in towers made of glass They've built a thinking engine from silicon and brass This new AI can paint and write, it learns from all we do And folks ask if it's progress, or a nightmare coming true They talk of jobs and ethics, what is real and what is fake Another tool of wonder, and another heart to break And the wires hum with whispers from a land across the sea Where cannons roar and mothers weep for what will never be

And every distant tremor sends a shiver to our shore A reminder we're all connected, by commerce and by war Oh, the ink is new upon the page, the headlines flash and gleam But it's the same old river flowing, just a slightly different stream The struggle for the power, and the struggle for the gold The same old human story, brave and tired, young and old