The farm stood, gray rotting wood,
the back of the barn broken.
The house forsaken, by vines overtaken,
told a story that never was spoken.
The fields lay bare, in the summer air,
dust and weeds grew a deplorable crop.
Fallow and forsaken, the farm taken,
by adversities that would not stop.
The gnarled hands, that worked these lands,
grew tired and bent from labor.
From the start, tenacity and
heart,
could not hold it all together.
He fought the rain and drought and pain,
of labor lost to the whims of nature.
Watched fields go dry and crops die,
yet somehow he did endure.
There were the bad years, filled with tears,
with bountiful years in-between.
Life then was good, and the farm stood,
secured for awhile as his dream.
But time savaged and viciously ravaged,
his hopes that were given up to despair.
Old and worn and hard work torn,
he sat on the porch with a distant stare.
He passed away on that long ago day,
vacant eyes looking into forever.
The farm and his life, ruined with strife,
at peace now, free from endeavor.
