~

“You know, Ward,” says June

to husband Ward Cleaver,

“last night    you were hard 

 on the Beaver.”

 

After the laughter and snicker

die down,

I can hear    from behind me

an audible sound

 

where a family surrounds

their car on a lot,

a fast-food diner,

where I hear them talk.

 

The yawp of what’s next,

from a ‘To-Do’ hit list,

where each one will sit,

and who gets in first.

 

This is the family

flagship of par,

the 21st Century

prime exemplar.

 

Who is to say

the better or worse?

When a culture divides

it makes it diverse.

 

But isn’t that what

the country’s about?

 

“Give us your poor,

your lost, thrown out.”

 

I stand on the ridge

of the culture, astride:

Divergent convergence,

and emergence arrives.

 

The culture that was,

isn’t long to survive,

but hang on the walls,

of a great enterprise.

 

“That was an ancestor.

I have his eyes.

Imagine my coming.

His total surprise.

 

And here was the milkman;

the postman,    and someone.

And this one’s the neighbor,

who lived right next door.”

 

Give us your tired, your hungry and poor.

We’ll come up with something.

That’s what we’re for:

 

A Bouillabaisse Nation,

what’s one culture more?

And, should you not like it,

well….there’s always a war.

 

I stand now bestraddle

the Culture Divide.

I laugh at some babble;

with another, I cry.

 

A culture chameleon,

I still will survive.

But, by God! sometimes

it’s hard to know why.

 

There always is something

that doesn’t sit right.

But hold on one minute,

we’ll make it fit tight

 

In the Bouillabaisse Nation

of many archetype.

~

 

 

©2013, Marvin Loyd Welborn

5 August 2013

 

Poem’s Score: 0.7