No more will fields of cotton or corn stalks wave

Where winds of progress sow their seed

Generations weep the sweat they gave

Betrayed by faceless corruption and greed

~~

Agrarian ways sold to the highest bidder

Weakened by a nations diminished resolve

Ill effects they fail to consider

Of a livelihood they so nonchalantly dissolve

~~

Our sustenance awarded to foreign lands

No thought given to our founding traditions

So many necessities taken out of our hands

Forcing this debtor nation into submission

~~

John Deere once green sits plagued with rust

Barns and silos like monuments sit vacant

Conglomerate farmers betraying our trust

Their harvests destined for the seafront

~~

Farms and fields are no longer held sacred

Mere property to be bartered, bought and sold

Paid not to plant so many acres left arid

There is more money in building homes we are told

~~

We’ve sold off our future for a profit it seems

Self-sufficiency a thing of the past

Our founders would tremble at the love of excess we deem

Prized more highly than that which will last

~~

The road on which we travel is a perilous one its true

Its course for our own sake we must alter

Lack of fortitude to do what we know we must do

To a second place status we will falter

~~ D. R. DiFrancesco ~~