the song of the day (bread and roses)

March came in like a lion that year 

and I swear that the lion ate the lamb 

following a winter with driving snow 

tearing flowers from the sidewalks, tearing roots from the sand

like most, I was born and i’ll die here 

my legacy belongs to the mills
it’s the children I bore to land of crumbling buildings 

the pain, the sweat, the mill’s slow killing

the mill children were the sidewalk flowers 

in the snow of 1912 

starving beauties, gaunt and haggard, too young to be beaten down 

and how it killed the workers to see a baby slaving beside 

while the boss-man in his tail coat brought his gold to town

and the song of the day was bread and roses 

and the sound of the children just trying to escape 

and the song was a cry for the starving hearts and bodies 

it was the song of the workers of the lawrence mills

there are 30,000 of us behind 

those cracked blood-red walls 

and they cut our wages and starved us out 

while they lengthened our hours 

our fingers were slashed from sewing and our cheeks
were all sunken in 
some were just fourteen and hungry 

but the cries weren’t heard over the factory’s din

we were dying in an industrial prison 

being hung by the fabrics we sewed

 twice as thick as rags we wore 

under the weight of the working class’s load
and the song of the day was bread and roses 

and the sound of the workers just trying to escape 

and the song was a cry for the starving hearts and bodies 

it was the song of the workers of the lawrence mills

it was that january when we threw down our needles 

and marched to the picket lines 

and there we stood for sixty days 

forty nations standing side by side

and the troops came in with their boots and their guns

 to restore the land of the free 

and the workers were beaten, the children were trampled 

all in the name of the economy

but we held strong 

and screamed for the bread and the roses 

that we, we deserved

 we called for our lives and for our fair pay 

and lawrence, she was heard

and the song of the day was for bread and roses 

it was the cry of the workers to be set free 

it was a song from the heart, played through the body 

it was victory found in solidarity

- Jennifer Stowers Summer 1999