Seeing the Other Side

It’s easy to render snap judgments
and be guilty of gossip—you know!
So often we’ll see only one side,
while sizing folks up in life’s flow.

There’s always a chance some are hurting
or handicapped—body or mind.
It’s best to hold back our opinions;
they can turn out so wrong or unkind.

I passed by a homestead one morning
and I saw what I’d never seen done—
sitting down on the ground in his garden
was a man pulling weeds, one by one.

I had heard of people so lazy—
you could hardly get them to move;
and I figured this fellow could be one;
that I was dead wrong, time would prove.

In the days of the horse and the buggy,
perhaps I’d have stopped for a chat;
but of course in this day of great progress,
we seem to have lost time for that.

But somehow, I kept on a-thinking—
couldn’t get that man out of my mind;
pulling weeds, sitting down in the garden.
“Lazy-bones” is the name for his kind.

When I had transacted my business—
came back in two hours, I’d say,
there, still on the ground, in the garden,
was “Lazy-bones,” working away.

As the warm summer sun was a shining,
quite a patch of the weeds he had pulled;
but I’ll say that I wasn’t quite ready
for the sight I was about to behold.

Determined to make his own living,
(others like him, sell pencils, or beg)
he was tending his crop with his own hands;
for you see, he had but one leg!

Friend of mine, there’ve been times I was hurting;
and I really don’t want to complain;
from the looks of some folks that went by me,
the message came through clear and plain.

How I wished—oh, I wished I could tell them,
and explain—but there was simply no way;
so I went on just tending my business,
pretending that all was okay.

So, I think that I’ve learned a great lesson:
no matter what wells up inside,
I’m going to hold back my opinion,
till I look at a man’s other side!

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Picture: Free Wallpaper download from quotefancy.com, accessed July 26, 2017