Joan Prefontaine
Listening in the Dark
rustling in the sagebrush hunter's moon
Over the years I have had encounters with many creatures: circumventing a young bobcat on a river trail; swimming along a northern lakeshore alongside a mallard and her parade of ducklings; pausing on a desert hike to watch a javelina family cross the road. One summer a black bear rambled past me on his way to a raspberry patch in the woods. And one autumn a bull elk bugled his loneliness not far from my campsite. I have become adept at escorting hornets, spiders and scorpions safely out of my house, and have no problem sleeping in rustic cabins where small rodents scurry across my sleeping bag. So why is it that when a chorus of yips and howls startles me awake on moonlit nights, it always arouses in me a terrible sense of dread?
crescendo at 3 a.m. I pull my cat closer
About the Author
Joan Prefontaine has been writing haiku and haibun since 2012, after she moved to the mountains of central Arizona, where the wide-open spaces of the Southwest encouraged her to use fewer words and more reflective pauses. Her haibun have won several awards, including a Cottage Prize in Japan’s 2020 Genjuan International Haibun Contest.
Nothing sappy in these words. We enjoy Joan Prefontaine’s memories of nights spent camping sharing her time & space with animals as they casually go about the rhythms of their lives. But then we are caught up close, the sprit broken? No the ending Haiku tells us there are creatures we hold dear that we can protect even if they didn’t experience all those other lives.