Welcome to re:Virals, The Haiku Foundation’s weekly poem commentary feature on some of the finest haiku ever written in English. This week’s poem was

     the good soldier
     my ancestor who lived to tell
     nothing

          — LeRoy Gorman, The Heron’s Nest XIX:1 (2017)

Mojde Marvast knows this poem from inside out:

Thoughtful!

War is a question word in itself!
As a citizen of a war-stricken land, I have seen true misery and grief of it.
I have lost young relatives.
Once, overwhelmed by the sorrows of parents of these young boys and their so-called life, after the loss, I asked myself:
The price of how much land equals the life of one’s son ?!?!?!
I am still searching for the answer!!

Thank you for turning eyes to this wound !

I didn’t receive a poem from Mojde, so I’ve chosen one, which you’ll find below. We invite you to write a commentary to it. It may be as long or short, academic or spontaneous, serious or silly, public or personal as you like. We will select out-takes from the best of these. And the very best will be reproduced in its entirety and take its place as part of the THF Archives. Best of all, the winning commentator gets to choose the next poem for commentary.

Anyone can participate. A new poem will appear each Friday morning. Simply put your commentary in the Contact box by the following Tuesday midnight (Eastern US Time Zone). Please use the subject header “re:Virals” so we know what we’re looking at. We look forward to seeing some of your favorite poems — and finding out why!

re:Virals 82:

     after all these years
     ankle deep
     in the other ocean

          — Pamela Miller Ness, Frogpond 21.2 (1998)