Your Birkenstocks don't fool me.
Your words don't either-
Yoruba du du Congo.
I've heard those words too.
I may even go their some day.
But there's a REALITY
beyond your poetry reading,
a reality beyond the dreadlocks
and the patchouli oil and the sandals
melting in the July fourth sun.
The reality is that you will
drive home in your air-conditioned car,
listening to your favorite CD,
to your home in the burbs or trendy uptown,
to your neat little herb garden.
You'll watch your cable TV and your
favorite videos and take calls
on your cell phone you claim to hate.
You'll go to your secure job on Monday
just like the rest of us.
I hear you.
And I feel bad for the rest of the world,
for those "up to their crotches" in Congo mud,
for those who live in unimaginable refuse,
for the dirty-faced hungry kids on TV,
for those the world forgets.
But before you point your finger
at an entire nation, at your own culture,
don't forget that you sleep soundly
under America's security blanket-
even nude if you want to.
There won't be any war or hunger
raging through your bed in the night.
Don't forget you've been vaccinated,
your cervix scraped every year,
your lungs heard with a stethoscope,
your belly happy every day.
You think you are a timeless citizen of the world
because you can string your pretentious words
into four pages of
drivel.
You think you've got it figured out because you can
chant.
You can't be every person.
You can't live every culture
no matter how many books you read,
no matter how many news programs you see,
no matter how many lost causes you support.
You are a product of America,
even if you wear Birkenstocks
and reek of patchouli.
kmb 07/02
