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      April 14, 2013ResettlementLe Pham Le

      Young couple with small child,
      we arrive in San Francisco
      one July afternoon,
      summer grasses waving on the hills.
      Why then do we feel
      such a chill autumn wind?
      Carrying one suitcase,
      one affidavit of refugee status,
      one outfit each
      bought with money
      loaned by a friend in the Malaysian camp,
      at the end of the tunnel
      of wasted youth, of obstacle after obstacle,
      we arrive in America.
      Our ragged clothes give us away
      and our sponsors welcome us,
      laughing, “You do look like refugees!”
      At journey’s end,
      uncertain, hesitant, we begin.

      from #21 - Summer 2004

      Le Pham Le

      “Poetry has always been, for me, has always been a mythical world, yet a true paradise where I can imerse myself into an absolute state of peace and happiness.”