perplexed parents
in landmark marriages

and beautiful daughters
in love with crusaders
who never return home

distinguished doctors
who discovered the cure
for societal acceptance of
mixed racial unions

and summer breezes that
just consume dismayed
intolerant and impassioned lovers

immigrants survived because
they were raised in concentration camps
staring through barbed wire as
a drama unfolded and wrapped its
way all around us, springing
ahead and leaving behind hidden
truths wrapped in the shells
of small acorn that get
crushed by some broken
and watered down narrative

but because these observations are too
often described as being captivating, moving and
oh-so melodramatic, we all too often forget
that they sometimes happen to us as well

(c) March, 1997, Steven H. Lee

This poem is also posted in The Writer's Corner at Epinions.com.