A Mother's Soliloquy

Just imagine that's me, and I'm
holding a spray bottle of Simple Green.  

To clean, or not to clean—that is the question.

Whether tis better in the main to suffer

The grime and messes of outrageous children

Or to take arms against a sea of clutter

And by opposing end it.  To clear, to wash

No more—and by one wash to say we end

The chaos, and the thousand natural shocks

That kids are good for.  ‘Tis an insanity

Foolishly to be wished.  To wash, to clean

To clean—perchance to rest; ay, there’s the rub,

For in that space of clean what chances come

When I have straightened up this living room

Must give them strength.  That’s the truth

That makes calamity of so much cleaning.

For they will grab the chance and scorn my time,

Th’ mother’s wrong, the proud children crazy,

The pangs of unpleasant work, the dirty dishes,

The insolence of children, and the spurns

A patient mother endures from piles of toys

When she herself might her good book read

With a cup of coffee?  Who would the burden bear

To grunt and sweat over a pile of laundry

But that the dread of something worse under the beds,

The undiscovered horrors, from whose depth

No mother will return, frightens the heart,

And makes us rather scrub those tubs we have

Than retreat to a clean we only dream of?

Thus conscience does make cleaners of us all,

And thus the natives do spur me to action

And I cast about with bitterness of thought

And clean with great fervor and torment

But in this regard, my actions turn awry

And lose the name of order.  Loud they are,

The foul offspring!  Kids, in thy hands

Be all my work forgotten.

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