People say you gotta look back to explain your life. 
Grew up on farming cash crops, so that’s what I did. 

Got so I added a hundred head for milking, but always 
I kept a close eye on the ledger. Bushel prices got so 

low I had to let crops rot in the fields. Two years of that 
and I was sinking. Them dog days seemed to never end. 

Prayers just bounced off the ceiling. Tried for another 
loan but the bank said sorry and I begged but still it did 

no good. Sold most of the herd. Had to go to work 
at the mill. Worked those paper machines twelve hours 

a day and no rest, then back to farm chores. Those first 
nights when I got home I swear I could barely raise 

my fork. Fell asleep in my work clothes, still half asleep 
with the alarm next morning. But pay was enough to keep 

bellies full in the long winter, so I stuck it out. Then 
the machines stopped. Paper business just dried up like 

beans in the dead fields. So now I’m back to the milking 
at dawn. Guess I haven’t scraped manure off my boots 

for the last time. A bit more whiskey now, helping me 
to forget the damage a late-spring hailstorm can do 

in fifteen minutes, what it’s like in late summer with no 
rain for weeks and fields dry as a scab, those awful 

blizzard days that kill cattle, the loneliness from dawn 
to dusk and speaking only to the cows and chickens. 

But I’m still making a go of it for the wife and kids. 
I give it everything I’ve got and I’m still poor. 

What if I don’t do it? Then you people don’t get 
your milk, your beans, and corn. Maybe I’ll sell 

it all off and finish with it. Folks like me should 
be paid attention to. But I’m expecting nothing 

except the world will end. It ain’t good to look back.