Used Farm Equipment Auction

Today at Athens, Louisiana, Uncle Travis and I went
to a charity used farm equipment auction,
consisting mostly of things worn out, broken, or bent,
full of rusty edges, blades requiring caution.

A huge field was filled with hundreds of items from
tractors to implements the use of which I couldn’t fathom.
Want almost anything used to farm? They had some,
especially old tractors…in row upon row they had them.

Most were in bad condition - old and well used.
Still one by one they went for the highest bid,
the auctioneer speaking so fast I stayed confused.
Each a bargain, but to me in each a greater value hid.

These tractors had served some farmer faithfully and well,
had helped plant his crops, his sweat, his family’s dreams
into the ground. Generations of farm history they could tell.
But, at auction, sentimental value has no worth it seems…


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