The Death of Small Towns is Killing America - a poem of small town America

You think you live small after seeing the metropolises
Until you go to those places out in the real rural areas
where if you blink you miss the whole town from the road
and never realize that fifty, a hundred, maybe fifteen score
call the place home as you drive by the place racing to
the gathering so distant from your home forgeting
that there once were roller rinks, theatres, schools
and thriving church communities in this place you pass.
And now so much of the old life is gone, stolen by the cities
shuttered by low profit margins, killed by insurance burdens
Your grandparents generation would have stopped at every town
explored the antique shops, the cafe, maybe the bar and talked
learning of the place, or at least what the locals would share.
Now, we are too self absorbed, scared of each other, with some reason
and the small town dies.....and with it the best part of America...