From The Farmer's View

The State of Virginia
Has some incredibly
Beautiful countryside,
Ripe with scenic vistas,
But the place where we stopped
Looked positively ugly,
Barren and gray
To my untrained eyes.
The old farmer
Who had commanded
Us to stop
Could hardly contain
His passion for the beauty
Of what he saw.
When he gazed
At the barren ground
Before us,
He obviously saw
Something I couldn’t see.
He saw the land
Not as it was,
But as it could be.
He envisioned
The seeds being planted
And the crops growing high
In that fertile Virginia soil.
He saw people being fed
And money being made.
He saw a farm family,
Virtually self-sufficient,
Working that land
And proud of the work
They were doing.
He saw the heart of America
Pulsating and free.
It took me a long time
To begin to understand
What that farmer saw
That day as we looked out
Over that bleak
And empty field.
Sometimes we have to learn
To see through borrowed eyes
To recognize the beauty
Of what is right there
In front of our face.