HAIKU DIALOGUE – Migration – Internal Migration – long list

Migration with Guest Editor Carole MacRury

Migration is the movement of people from one place to another, with the intention of resettlement. For thousands of years humans have moved and expanded their range over land bridges that no longer exist.  These early nomads followed the food, the climate or fled natural disasters. Historically, mass migration has shaped every country in the world through both conflicts and exploration. It continues today as our world grows smaller due to international trade and travel. There are many causes of international migration. Some people move in search of work or economic opportunity, to reunite with family or to study. My family fits into this category when we left Canada to study in the US, and never went back. Some move to escape conflict, persecution, or large-scale human rights violations. Still others move in response to the adverse effects of climate change, natural disasters, or other environmental factors. And some people were forcefully stolen from their countries to become slaves in another country. These migratory patterns shaped our countries. We wouldn’t be the same without the rich influx in immigrants who enriched our lives through their contributions in science, politics, technology, fashion, food, music, art and so much more. Most of us in the Americas can trace our roots back to another country. Indigenous people have their own unique stories to tell about the effects of colonization on their lives.  We’ll explore this rich topic for the next few weeks calling upon our own experiences with emigration, our own experiences with the migration of flora and fauna, and lastly, our internal migration within our own countries.

Below is Carole’s selection of poems on the topic of Internal Migration:

Thank you all for your fabulous response to the final prompt of internal migration. You’ve really stretched your minds to address the theme in your own ways. From camping out in the backyard to finding your true north, read on to discover the many reasons we move, the reasons we come back, and in between the challenges we face and always, our universal longing for home, wherever that may be. As always there were many lovely poems not on this list that I’m sure will soon be published in a journal. I chose poems that reflected movement, change and/or reflection, even in the smallest and most humorous of ways at times.

expired visa
the struggle to become
someone I like

John Hawkhead
Bradford on Avon, UK

 

true north
finding my home
away from home

Karen Harvey
Pwllheli, Wales

 

moving west
my pioneer hopes
expanding

Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD

 

from trash-strewn streets
to a seaside town . . .
beach combing

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

moving day anniversary
still a stranger
small town pub

Mike Fainzilber
Rehovot, Israel

 

Brooklyn farewell–
following my heart
to the Golden Gate

Ruth Holzer
Herndon, VA

 

another spring
another house
another school

Vicki Vogt
Watertown, MA

 

city to town –
all roads lead
to the Shiva temple

Amoolya Kamalnath
India

 

hometown
everything smaller
including me

Mirela Brailean
Romania

 

new in town –
following the seagull
to the port

Daniela Lăcrămioara Capotă
Romania

 

I read poems
about north mountains
to the palm tree

Sharon Ferrante
Florida, USA

 

blooming cactus…
my thoughts return to
azaleas

David Josephsohn
Greensboro, NC

 

homecoming
I stumble to speak
my mother tongue

Nitu Yumnam
India

 

new home-
from somewhere the scent
of my ancestral home

Ram Chandran
India

 

post divorce
…leaving my forever home

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

concrete jungle
the grass was greener
where I came from

Ravi Kiran
India

 

a parrot on the boat—
he tells the future
of my red dress

Richa Sharma
India

 

union’s road
i leave my dollhouse
with my parents

Sandip Chauhan
Great Falls, VA

 

office transfer
our life again
in boxes

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

Amish buggy
a horse leans into
our charging station

Lorraine A Padden
San Diego, CA USA

 

first day of school
I teach the new girl
the sign for friend

Kelly Sargent
Williston, VT

 

the compass
points north
one way ticket

Pamela Jeanne
Yukon, Canada

 

downsizing
fledglings leaving
the nest

Mike Gallagher
Ireland

 

accent neutralization
losing a part
of myself

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

Holy Land
bombs herding everyone
south to Rafah

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

 

Spring clouds
the old pine and me
still together

Nazarena Rampini
Italy

 

nomad years
learning to belong
everywhere

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

new home
unpacking all
but the fireflies

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

the big tent
a summer vacation
in my backyard

Kanjini Devi
The Far North, Aotearoa NZ

 

transfer order
I pause in the backyard
abloom with mango trees

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

 

new habitat
the fresh smell
of dung

Mircea Moldovan
România

 

bee house
i too unpack
little by little

C.X. Turner
UK

 

moving
to the west
a new sunrise

Biswajit Mishra
Canada

 

with the same love
tending
granny’s tiny rose garden

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

starry night
homesick as a journey
begins

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

returning back
to the bittersweet moments . . .
ancestral home

Manoj Sharma
Kathmandu

 

house sold —
the roses we planted
too old to move

Ben Oliver
United Kingdom

 

wrapping newspaper
on bone china
grandpa’s obituary

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh India

 

a farm gal
in the Windy City
system overload

Susan Farner
USA

 

hunger pangs
the big city swallows
a small town girl

Vandana Parashar
India

 

warming up
to another tongue
ocean moon

Daya Bhat
India

 

fourteen cousins
return to the old home town
the last aunt’s funeral

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

hardest move
packing your belongings
from the nursing home

Jennifer Gurney
US

 

new home
the same
rain

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

dragonfly summers
fading away
city lights

Debbie Sterling
Oregon, USA

 

mountain ridges –
from the window of my room
new housing

Elena Zouain
France

 

airport delay
we stare out the window
for no reason

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA

 

like I remember:
the winter moon
walking me home

Evan Spivack
Teaneck, NJ

 

emoticons
getting adjusted
to gated community

Lakshmi Iyer
India

 

Berkeley or bust ––
my Conestoga
is a red Toyota

Sheila Sondik
Bellingham, WA

 

wife migrates
to the farthest room –
oh, my snoring!

Tomislav Maretić
Zagreb, Croatia

 

cherry blossoms –
back to the park
of my childhood

Ana Drobot
Romania

 

Easter at home –
his father’s hair
a bit whiter

Steliana Cristina Voicu
Ploiesti, Romania

 

from town to town
in search of his dream
our vagabond son

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

same curry
made by different hands
tongue on fire

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
India

 

tear downs
up and down our street
a childhood dismantled

Ann Sullivan
Massachusetts USA

 

new job in Oxford
I swim against the tourist tide
to get to work

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

 

city center
remembering
what it used to be

Govind Joshi
Dehradun, India

 

across
the mason-dixon
watching my tongue

Charles Harper
Yokohama

 

new face
in my neighbourhood —
native self

Jagajit Salam
Imphal, India

 

job transfer
grandma’s rocking chair
on a new porch now

Cindy Putnam Guentherman
Illinois, USA

 

fireflies
flash landing lights-
I’m home at last

Ruth Happel
United States

 

moving on . . .
crocuses planted by birds
across the driveway

Elaine Andre
Tacoma, Washington, USA

 

land of ancestors –
internal migration
in our dreams

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

moving upstate
a purple haze still lingers
over the mountains

Sari Grandstaff
Woodstock, NY

 

small town
gossip
moved me

Jan Stretch
Victoria BC Canada

 

sixty two years—
still missing the lake house
with the knotty pine

Colette Kern
Southold, New York

 

moved to the country never try to milk a bull

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

getting ahead
of the dandelion fluff
job relocation

Luminita Suse
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

 

lots of crocuses
and still not like the ones
in my old mountains

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

house of horrors
to first apartment—
prison break

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

leaving land locked friends
my cardboard hitch hiking sign
reads “west coast”

Mike Stinson
Nebraska

 

nursing home –
already the third room
for angry old man

Aljoša Vuković
Croatia, Šibenik

 

moving to the sea
who should I tell about
cherry blossom wind

Eva Limbach
Deutschland

 

four moves
in my formative years…
stale mates

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

a cold wind –
snowbirds fly
to Florida

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

a journey
without a destination
spring blizzard

Margaret Coombs
Manitowoc, Wisconsin

 

ten years away
I wonder if they kept
the rose bush

Jenn Ryan-Jauregui
Tucson, Arizona USA

 

resettlement
conceding the familiar
unseasonable blooms

Gwen Bitti
Australia

 

western reserve…
moving over to let others
on the highway

Nancy Brady
Huron Ohio

 

accepted
to my college stretch
now a good ole boy

John S Green
Amman, Jordan

 

getting up
and getting out
escape to new skies

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

Leaving the city –
I shun the bright lights
to see the stars

Caroline Ridley-Duff
UK

 

new keys
lugging mattress and pillow
longing for deep sleep

Surya Nes
Tangerang, Indonesia

 

ice on the canal
going nowhere slowly
a boat named Bliss

Nick T
Frome, Somerset, England

 

Nomad in my land,
From hills to cities I roam,
Each step, a new home.

Vimuth De Silva
Sri Lanka

 

vagabond life –
the starry sky
only his

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

every Canadian winter
she travels to Asian plains
…on mind’s wings

Anjali Warhadpande
Pune, India

 

a long journey –
who knows if everyone will have
a house to enter

Maria Teresa Sisti
Italy

 

a new home-
returning to the sea
one step at a time

Sally Quon
Canada

 

knocking on doors
to find new friends
navy brat

Carol Judkins
Carlsbad, CA

 

hometown visit
after three decades–
gravestone smiles only

Radhika De Silva
Sri Lanka

 

full moon wanes
gibbous to half to sliver
cross-country phone calls

Peter Larsen
Lake View Terrace, California

 

pregnant bride
the college registrar gives
us her “bluebird room”

Kathabela Wilson
NY/Texas

Join us next week for Carole’s commentary on additional poems…

Guest Editor Carole MacRury resides in Point Roberts, Washington, a unique peninsula and border town that inspires her work. Her poems have won awards and been published worldwide, and her photographs have been featured on the covers of numerous poetry journals and anthologies. Her practice of contemplative photography along with an appreciation of haiku aesthetics helps deepen her awareness of the world around her. Both image and written word open her to the interconnectedness of all things, to surprise, mystery and a sense of wonder. She is the author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides (Black Cat Press, 2008, 2nd Printing, 2018) and The Tang of Nasturtiums, an award-winning e-chapbook (Snapshot Press 2012).

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

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Photo Credits:

Banner photo credit:
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Prompt photo credit:
prompt photo three – Internal Migration – Carole MacRury

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.