Haze and neighbors

As I drove this morning the sun shone brightly, leaving only a faint haze behind. Everything nearby was sharp and clear—or perhaps only slightly faded; but the mists distanced the farm houses across the fields.

What was near was clear—the car, my youngest daughter, the road, the sunlight and the mailboxes by the side: my little part of the world. The distant houses hold fathers who clearly see the sunlight and their roads and their daughters, but it is all hazy to me. I can know it, but not see it until our little parts of the world converge.

I mustn't forget that their skies are clear too, but I can't pretend that I see their roads, or value them the same as the roads I see--until they become my neighbors.