Why so much depends on the red wheelbarrow

Starting with a really "simple" poem, one of the few that I can quote from memory, of course it's very short and almost zen-like in its simplicity (and ambiguity) - William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheelbarrow," which goes in its entirely: So much depends/upon:/a red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain/water/beside the white/chickens. This poem, and many others by Williams, moved and inspired me very much in college and grad school days, when I was trying to write poetry and was a disciple in the church of simplicity and clarity. The Red Wheelbarrow captures a single image in space and time, and seemed to me then, and now, very much like the poetic equivalent of an impressionist or post-impressionist painting. It's an image in and of itself, with no outside reference whatsoever - or is it? At one time I thought so. I would have told you, back then, that Williams is showing how the completeness and complexity of a composition depends on the perfect arrangement and selection of the objects: for space, color, and composition. I imagined Williams looking at a painting in a museum or gallery and being struck by its beauty and realizing that the composition would not have succeeded without the red wheelbarrow - so much does depend on it. Later, I came to realize that the poem had a deeper social meaning as well: so much depends on the red wheelbarrow. This poem is also a meditation on work and a way of life: a perhaps struggling or impoverished farm, or at the very least a family farm (a few chickens poking around in the yard - this is not agribusiness) - and so much depends on the proper tools and equipment, perhaps the entire livelihood of a family depends on the ability of the farmer to get his or her daily tasks done. Without the wheelbarrow - even with those healthy chickens pecking away - the family will not endure, not in the country anyway. Finally, what about red? The colors of poem are very important, red and white and the extremes, and the mysterious "glazed with rainwater" in the middle: a bluish color perhaps, but cracked and shimmering. It's just rained, which is good for the farmer - but what is the wheelbarrow, on which so much depends, left out in the rain? Not good care of an important implement. Note that Williams titles the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" - emphasizing its importance, whereas the text refers only to "a red wheelbarrow" - as if could be any old wheelbarrow. The text of the poem does not quite realize the significance and importance of that object - as we do, from the title. What has happened to the farmer? Where are the people in this poem? They are hidden, behind the beauty and the mystery of the simple images.