Upward Mobility

He was a stranger on the
Lower East Side scene,
A bearded, skull-capped Chasid,
Came to this country - green,
A pushcart was his livelihood,
A slum - his neighborhood,
His English was atrocious,
His offspring, though - precocious,
He sent them on to City College
Where they accumulated knowledge,
Today, his children are society's elite,
A lesson how good genes
And having knowledge as a need
Can slums and poverty defeat.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2008 Alfred Charasz