Joan Prefontaine
Empiricism
To understand the actual world as it is, not as we wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.
—Bertrand Russell
My father, who claimed to be the last living logical positivist, often bragged to his family and friends that he, unlike ordinary mortals, had never been bothered by poison ivy. When my sisters and I picked up annoying, bumpy rashes every summer from simply making a fort in the meadow or playing croquet in the grassy yard, dad would gleefully kneel at the edge of his garden and yank out clumps of the shiny, three-leafed plant with his bare hands.
removing the hook from the fish’s eye dad’s nimble fingers
We believed in dad’s invincibility for many years until one summer. After we had reached young adulthood and left home, my sisters and I visited my parents for the Fourth of July and found dad nursing his itching, blistered hands, a bottle of calamine lotion on the table by his side. “What happened?” we asked. “All theories are subject to proof,” was all that he said.
late night pyrotechnics dad issues precautions along with sparklers
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.