Lee Rena

[Dedicated to the orphans of Jacob's Home]

Dear sweet child, where is your family?
Who is beside you, to love you endlessly
A stranger born in a foreign land
Forgotten, abandoned with nothing in hand.

Dear sweet orphan have you a place to call home?
Have you any loved ones or do you suffer all alone?
Does anyone console you, wipe away your tears ?
Do you have anyone to comfort your fears?
Or on stormy nights, when you awaken to thunder
Must you cry yourself back to restless slumber?

Dear sweet Irena who will pray for your release?
Curse the ones that made you their bargaining piece
A blameless victim of the cruelest tradition
Amidst the loneliest depths of parentless perdition.

MYHL
10/13/05

Copyright © 2006 Marc Y H Landeweer

Commentary: This poem is dedicated to the orphans at Jacob's Home in Pyongtaek, South Korea, the orphanage where I spent part of my childhood. Because of legislation within the past couple years these children will never be adopted. The justification of this law is based on placing bloodlines ahead of the well being of children. Orphans up to the age of 4 may no longer be adopted unless the family has formally relinquished the child. Children above the age of 4 may no longer be adopted, period. If I had been born at the wrong time, I would have spent 13 years in orphanages rather than being raised, loved and nurtured by my wonderful parents.

The title of this work refers to a little Ukrainian girl who was abandoned by her parents and left at this Korean orphanage. Since she lacked identification, the orphanage named her Lee Rena, which when actually pronounced sounds as Ee-rhee-na (i.e. Irena). She, along with the dozens of toddlers at Jacob's Home will spend the entirety of their childhoods parentless and mostly forgotten by society.

This has been by far the hardest and most emotional poem for me to write. It has been in the works for well over a year, only materializing into a coherent poem only this past October.