Joan Prefontaine

Samsara

in a previous 
life, my cousin? 
mountain cuckoo 
                   Issa 

At a past-life regression conference, a friend discovers that he was once an Olympian wrestling champ who resided in ancient Athens and who belonged to an elite circle. An artist friend returns from a similar retreat thrilled to report that she had once been a shaman who resided in a cave in Asia. Another acquaintance pays for a psychic reading and learns that he was a military hero in the French Revolution, and that he was his own ancestor in a previous life. Whenever others share these marvelous tales with me, I listen and nod, delighting in my role as their admiring servant.

muddy bike path 
happy just to avoid 
the potholes 

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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.