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Janice Doppler

Interruptions

A stranger—bald with beard stubble—exits the campground wash house, heads to the pavilion where I’m studying a Confucian text, The Great Learning. . . investigate your inner nature, improve yourself, help others improve. Without being invited, he perches on my table, chats about the drop in humidity following yesterday’s storm.

muddy puddle
wings splashing and thrashing —
nimbus clouds

He turns the conversation abruptly. “My body is riddled with cancer. I have six months with chemotherapy, two without it. Chemo was stopped after I cut my leg chopping wood. The wound has healed. Physicians hope to resume, but I lean toward letting nature take its course. Dealing with daily life is preferable to suffering the side effects. There are coliform bacteria in the well of the ocean-front cottage I purchased last year so I come here for water and showers. Half my strength is gone, but I feel good.”

rising tide
on sun-dried rocks
drowsy seals

I respond with what I believe he wants to hear, needs to hear. “You’re the one living in your skin. Only you know what is best.” It’s time to leave for whale watching so I shake the man’s hand, wish him luck. He smiles and asserts “I don’t need luck. What’s going to happen will happen. When you think about the myriad sperm that could have fertilized the eggs that started us, it’s amazing we were born. All we know is that we must do our best to live well and that we will eventually die.”

thunderheads
above the beach
osprey cries

About the Author

Janice Doppler lives at the edge of a forest in Massachusetts in the USA. Her haiku and haibun have been published in frogpondbottle rocketsThe Haibun JournalCattails, and Drifting Sands. A retired school teacher and administrator, she enjoys tai chi, bird watching, and bird carving.

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