francine porad

It is my pleasure to spotlight two selections of Francine Porad's haiku. They reveal a rich tapestry of her life, and of the haiku that is prominent in international journals from 1985 to the present. It will be a joy for the poets who have read these haiku in the original journals and Francine's collections to see them once more, and a rich journey for the new poets who started writing in more recent years. Enjoy!

NATURE and the PASSING OF TIME IN DAILY LIVES

In the first selection, Francine's haiku combines the constant flow as human nature and the natural world overlap. There is a wide range of light humor and profound sadness revealed in these haiku:

long night
I adjust my breathing
to his

an ant scurries
between raindrops
another biopsy

at odds today
crow-pecked plums
in the leafy tree

handsome vendor
my name
on the grain of rice

drawing a house
with a fenced-in yard
the deaf boy

vacation beachfront
tossed back in the waves
a perfect worry-stone

class reunion
filling the distance
with words

I raise my head
from his chest, heartbeats
to crickets

clouds spill
a torrent of rain
divorce papers

from my bare shoulder
he plucks
an imaginary speck

cardiologist
heaping butter
on a sweet roll

another disguise
the stranger
in last night's dream

ikebana
arthritic fingers taper
the slender branches

finding father
in Frans Hals painting
how his eyes sparkle

all this talk of war
baby's mouth
quivers in sleep

threat of war
new moon's face
completely in shadow

poolside, we chat
about reincarnation
no longer strangers

baby's giggle the way a smile changes two faces

long commuter ride
a stranger discusses
his incontinence

spring cleaning
all the forget-me-nots
tossed by the gardener

Mother's Day
gift-wrapped box of chocolates
one piece missing

**************

NATURE ALIVE

In this second selection, Francine
brushes softly with the nature
of the sea and gardens where
she lives in the Pacific Northwest:

snapped line
the salmon's full length
in the air

late fall
the skeleton of the tree
on each leafback

the waves roll
fracturing the sun
into a hundred stars

crab
washed ashore
each feeler intact

early morning
the slanted shadow
of the pink house

monastery
the all-white room
hoards the sunlight

tide's in
slipping through her fingers
sun sparkle

bursting free
from a box-shaped pruning
forsythia branches

arctic storm
the trees' frozen drips
pointing skyward

heavy snowfall
the last bus leaves
in chains

love poem read aloud
splintered light
of a billion stars

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