Monday, December 1, 2014

A Room of My Own: Up and Down the Worry Hill

harvest moon rising ...
a tremble
in the migrant's voice

sunlight through the window ...
Happy New Year
on the migrant's tongue

the migrant's deep sigh ...
the Statue of Liberty
in twilight


Notes:

1 The first haiku won Second Place in the 10th Kloštar Ivanić Haiku Contest, 2013. Below is the judge's comment:

The year wears on, maybe he is a migrant farm worker, far from his home country. He is working late, the harvest moon rises, huge and yellow over  the horizon. Filled with nostalgia, he thinks of his homeland, his family, his life there, as he talks to fellow migrants he holds back tears, but his voice wavers.

2 Give me your tired, your poor
   Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
   The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
   Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
   I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

   Poet Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus," 1883, inscribed beneath the Statue of Liberty in 1903

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