i suppose i could nip the but, however I think I'd have to either change the tense of "quietly hates" accordingly or insert a forced pause (-) after prays to make sense in english, no? what do you think?

lay man prays-
quietly hates
the next day

lay man prays
quietly hating
the next day

bethy, your comment sparked me. thanks.

i think i might have too much going on here. Theres an analogy between the hillsides which -- if you;ve seen them -- seem to cover the andes like a blanket. Theres also the ecuadorians shivering, from the cold andean weather - although its on the equator, its friggin cold. Also the people shivering was intended at the time of writing (2006) to symbolize the turbulent times of tumultuous protests over govornmental elections and the TLC (Free Trade Agreement) that the USA had proposed for all of Latin America which generated lots of confusion, especially for the small-time farmers.

This is my first attempt at writing senryu. This series of 5 senryu tries to maintain a recurrent theme of sleep and darkness. I feel like some of the first attempts here to come lack the essence of true senryu, however, I'm keeping my head up :)

PS: The others in the series will follow shortly as I don't wish to put them all on one submission as I've seen some people do with shorter senryu / haiku.

thanks Supreme and Dovina for your comments across my first three (ever) haikus. Why do you recommend I start with an a on line 2 here? Just curious as I'm learning :)