Where do crumbs come from?
From out of the sun?
Do they fall like snow
From a giant hot bun?
Where do they come from?
Do they fly, do they run?
Are they mined like gems?
Are they grown like plums?
Every day I sweep the shop floor clean
Till the corners are clear and the tile grout gleams,
But as soon as I finish, as soon as I’m done,
I turn around and what’s this? I find another crumb.
Where, O where, I ask, do they come from?
Do they shoot from the lamp?
Do they roll down the ramp?
Do they sprout from the floor?
Do they walk through the front door?
Hundreds and thousands, maybe a million,
I find in the cracks and corners of the kitchen.
A giant army that is waiting to come,
An army to attack and cover me with crumbs.
Sometimes I want to weep and weep
there are so many of them left to sweep.
And in the place I have recently swept
Several more have sneakily crept.
Where, I ask, do you all come from?
from a star?
from afar?
from a mountain?
from a fountain?
I realize, of course, it’s often the case
That crumbs come out of my own hands and face.
They came when I cut and they came when I ate;
They came from my bowl and they came from my plate.
But sometimes there seems no way to explain
How my counters have gotten so covered in grains!
All I know, I must confess,
Is that crumbs need cleaning,
As they make a big mess.
And I guess that’s the moral,
I guess that’s the end,
Of crumbs we make many
And to crumbs we must bend.
[Picture of perpetually harassed attendant stooping to sweep crumbs in dust pan.]
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 