I have learned more than my mother,
I can drive a better bargain than my father,
I have struggled long and hard, I have achieved something.
Listen:
My father had tree tops full of singing birds;
I have chimneys full of soot.
My father had gray mists on the lowlands;
I have black smoke over acres of smudgy bottoms.
My father heard a tinkling bell and smelled the breath of the cows;
I hear the clang of the milk wagon and smell gasoline.
My father had a hired hand at fifty cents a day and his keep;
When I need anything done I have to pay $2.40 per hour,
The Union scale.
My mother had a neighbor girl helping about the house,
A dainty miss,
Fit to go to church with her son;
I have a slovenly alien slopping about the flat,
Quarreling with trades-people,
Cursing the laundryman,
Extremely wasteful,
A high priestess of the garbage can.
My mother had clothes to suit the season;
I have a straw hat in January and a fur hat in July.
My mother had a path fringed with sweet alysum
Winding to the springhouse;
I have a dirty alley
With a lot of tin cans,
And one dead cat.
But listen:
My parents were born to their condition,
My father to his cattle and his hayfields,
My mother to her lambs-wool quilts,
And her feather-beds;
I have made my world,
That is, I helped to,
I had no hand in building the skyscrapers,
But,
I poisoned the cat.
