birthday card—
onion skins
skitter away
Published by
Jennifer Hambrick
A four-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Jennifer Hambrick won the 2020 Sheila-Na-Gig Pres Poetry Prize, won First Place in the 2018 Haiku Society of America's Haibun Award Competition, won First Place in the 2021 Martin Lucas Haiku Competition, and authored the collections In the High Weeds, winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies; Joyride (Red Moon Press), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada; and Unscathed (NightBallet Press). She has won numerous other awards for her work, which has been published in The Columbia Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Santa Clara Review, Maryland Literary Review, POEM, the Red Moon Press haiku and contemporary haibun anthologies, Modern Haiku Press’ Haiku 20xx anthologies of “Notable Ku,” Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Mayfly, Frogpond, Contemporary Haibun Online, and in dozens of other journals and invited anthologies worldwide. A classical musician and public radio broadcaster and multimedia producer, Jennifer Hambrick lives in Columbus. View all posts by Jennifer Hambrick
I can see the dry onion skins skittering across the counter-top and crumbling away when you try to pick them up. Just like the years of our lives from birthday to birthday.
Very nice, Jennifer.
Thank you, Mike! Ah, yes – those skittering years.
I see business as usual. Yes, it’s a birthday but the normal chores of cooking and cleaning are still there. What says kitchen like onion skins. They are as elusive as the years of our life. I hope a fragrant pot of spagehetti was the result.
Interesting, Michelle. You know, this image just popped into my head as an emblem of something fragile that can be blown away with even the slightest little draft, or crushed with frighteningly little difficulty. Don't know why I thought of onion skins, because I wasn't actually doing anything with onions at the time. But now you've made me hungry!
LOL! Perhaps it was I who was hungry when I wrote the comment. I love your writing and enjoyed the haiku. cheers!
Thanks so much, Michelle!
Lovely. The onion skins reminded me of the sound of rustling paper which took me back to childhood and how much joy I had in receiving and opening birthday cards.
birthday ecard
in the bottom drawer
letter opener
Thank you, Jane. What a sweet memory. I love your haiku. But I pity the poor, neglected letter opener! And, of course, no rustling paper with ecards. A sign of the times.
birthday card—
onion skins
skitter away
—JENNIFER HAMBRICK
Although the wonderfully provocative phrase <grin> is fictive, as the chief onion peeler and bottle washer, I can see our own onion skins skittering away. Just as a snake sheds its skin, so humans shrug out of or into new skins, leaving whatever is left to 'skitter away'.
Great phrase to match your birthday! :-)
warm regards,
Alan
Nice! I like your interpretation, Alan. It turns the skittering onion skins in my poem into a positive metaphor that suggests leaving the old and exhausted behind, and heading into the new and potentially fruitful. Your interpretation almost makes me like birthdays. Almost. Thank you!
Thanks! :-)
Fortunately Karen always makes my birthdays so special that I'll even peel several pounds of onions for a big lentil curry to freeze and have over the next month. :-)
Alan
Sounds lovely! We do birthday lobsters (forgive me, if you're vegetarian/vegan). When my birthday rolled around last January, one of the lobsters found its way out of the bag in the back seat of the car. Guess it had an idea what was coming. And yes, I have haikued about it.
I'm vegetarian but eat meat too. Love vegetables! Rarely have lobster but love oysters and mussels: Champagne or beer with those two is heaven. :-)
I think the Japanese might eat the lobster alive on the table. Did you eat your's in the back of the car? That is hardcore radical!
Alan
No, I did not eat my lobster raw in the back seat. I put it/him/her back in the bag and pretended everything was normal. This lobster had become noticeably agitated and had actually tried to climb out of the tank as we were selecting it. It had plenty of fight but, sadly, not quite enough. Cheers!
The food commentary definitely appeals, but the image of the onion skins also to my ear hints at the complex texture and ephemerality of paper products.
Also, a poetic reply (an inferior one):
valentine's cards
two cloves of garlic
twinned and warm
What a lovely Valentine's Day ku, Timothy! I love the image of twin garlic cloves all warm and snuggled up next to each other. And when you consider how cold these cloves get as they winter over in the earth, their warmth becomes a thing that they share.
I like this.
Thank you!
Nice
The onion skins reminded me of the sound of rustling paper which took me back to childhood and how much joy I had in receiving and opening birthday cards. I like post
This really resonated with me, Michelle and reminded me of my grandmother. I always associate a papery-skinned onion with the skin of an older person – probably since writing this kukai entry inspired by the prompt "onion"! :)
marion
chopping onions –
my grandmother's
paper-thin skin
Monday, February 16, 2015
Results – Indian Kukai #9 – Onion
Marion Clarke [ Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland ] ( 6 , 3 , 4 ) = 24 pts
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