Robots Do Not Shop

Once it was wrinkles that blemished me in your eyes: Youthfulness alone met your taste in workers. Now it's my humanness that you scorn For the power and stamina of robots I lack. Yet sneer not at my flesh and bones: True, they make me weak in work But from them comes my consumer's thirst That keeps alive the world of work. Hands by turns should work and shop-- That's the cycle that keeps shops afloat, And it only endures while humans work. Robots don't shop so their shops go bust: Let them that sack us beware of this! Today you're the force and we the fossil But tomorrow we'll adapt and be the force. In history's graveyard big bones abound: Dinosaurs, mammoths, and mastodons-- Let big business beware! We'll take the door that you show us Out of your shop and into our homes Where we worked for ages past. Mark well where that door stands For there your headstone too shall stand When homes cluster and rise again To be our place of bed and bread. Thenceforth, home-branded goods alone we'll buy And watch your robots go jobless! A sweet day that'll be when tables turn And present to you a thing to learn-- A thing about us whom you fired From jobs where we were long mired Unaware that in us dwelled power To quit and our own world create.