The wheelbarrow, rain, and chicken all represent something that is necessary in order to live. The chicken represents food, the water is necessary to live as we are composed mostly of water, and the wheelbarrow is representative of work. Without hard work we become fat and lazy and die. To a farmer it represents his livelihood. To an average person it represents life in a broader perspective.

The stanzas of the poem take on the shape of wheelbarrows – wide on top and smaller on the bottom. The chickens are white because they represent purity as they are a pure food source that is still untampered with at that time, not like the genetically engineered chickens of today. The wheelbarrow could be red because it was written around the same time as the Red Scare. The wheelbarrow is representative of work and secret meaning could be socialism.