A Farmer in Spirit

I was sitting
At the counter
Of a restaurant
When a jolly giant
Of a black man
Came up
And sat down
Next to me.
One of his arms
Was in a cast,
And he explained
That he had missed
A step on a ladder,
And fell off.
He had been working
As an aircraft mechanic
For over 32 years,
And was looking
Forward to retirement.
The time off
Due to his broken arm,
Had given him
A taste of the freedom
He would soon have.
He couldn’t wait
To head back
To Georgia,
To the farm
He grew up on.
His face lit up
As he talked about
The pleasure
Of working the land.
He planned to
Growing a few crops,
Raising a some cattle
And a couple pigs,
And being self-sufficient.
He talked about
The privacy there,
How it was nearly
Half a mile
Between neighbors.
He couldn’t wait
To make his escape
From the traffic,
Smog and crowds
Of Los Angeles.
His eyes sparkled
With life
As his passion emerged
For life on the farm.
His family used to raise
Corn and cotton
When he was a kid,
And they had to work
Really hard
To make ends meet,
But this time
It would be different.
Now it would be
Purely for pleasure
And not for profit.
I could just see him
Running his hands
Through that
Rich Georgia soil
And tinkering endlessly
With the farm equipment.
He will probably be
One of the happiest men alive
Out there on that farm.