a heavy stillness
the april breeze is burdened
with a huge tariff
This haiku is also about tariffs, but from a different angle. The current tariffs being placed on, not just countries we have conflict with, but also countries who are our allies, and all on things that most Americans use on a daily basis, have caused a “heaviness" throughout the land. That this heaviness extends to the April breeze, who is so burdened by the tariffs that she has become still, offers up a dark but poignant haiku humor that points to the all-encompassing anxieties of these times.
—Valerie Rosenfeld