Woman Work - Maya Angelou

I've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The cane to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Till I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own.

The poetry is organized into five stanzas: the first one is composed of 14 lines, and every line presents a rhyming couplet, in order to make the rhyme very quick; the last four stanzas are quatrains.

All other lines of the poem, have not rhyming words, except for lines 24 and 26 where "white" rhymes with "tonight", and lines 28 and 30, where "stone" rhymes with "own". Moreover, in all the poem, there are a lot of repetitions.

In the first stanza there is a list of housework the woman has to do, for example look at the children, mend and bend clothes, wash the floor, go shopping, look after the garden and plants and pick up the cotton. 

For these reasons she is very tired and busy, she feels fed up, and so in the second stanza she asks the nature some forces to go on. For example she wants some light from sunshine, and some rain and dewdrops to cool herself.                                                                   

In the third stanza she asks the storm with his strong wind to keep her away in order to float in the sky, and in the next part she appeals to the snowflakes and icy kisses because she wants freshness and rest from all her homework.                                                                       

Finally, in the last stanza she is speaking about the sky, mountains and oceans, leaves and stones because they represent the Earth, and she speaks about the stars "star shine" and the moon "moon glow" because she wants to refer to their special light.                  

In the last line of the last stanza the woman says that all what she has cited, belong to her because, all elements that are able to give her relief, belong to the Earth, and so she thinks they can be a part of her.