A number of people have contacted me asking for an explanation of the haiku I was so impressed with. So I'll explain how I read it:so suddenly winter - I took this at face value. The author has experienced a sudden onset of winter, perhaps waking up to find everything covered with snow, although the weather had been mild previously.
baby teeth at the bottom
of the button jar - I know from experience the poignancy of coming across baby teeth you've kept. It brings memories of the children when they were very young, and leads you to compare how big they are now, although it seems only yesterday you swapped these teeth for money "from the tooth fairy" and stored them carefully in the button jar.
Then I had an "aha" moment. In the light of the poignant baby teeth in the button jar, I re-evaluated the first line of the haiku "so suddenly winter". Perhaps the author isn't commenting on a sudden onset of wintry weather, but a sudden feeling of having become old, a sudden awareness of how long it is since these teeth were stored away.
And that's what made me catch my breath.
Now I look at the four paragraphs it took to explain that, and I know I will never write a good haiku. But I do enjoy reading them.
3 comments:
And maybe, like growing old, winter didn't really come on so suddenly, it just feels that way because the author was busy with other things and not paying attention.
I like taking it both ways... winter as the season of the year and also the time of life.
The fact that this person has a jar of buttons also speaks to me. About the kind of person they are. I'm then sitting in the room with them, and my thoughts continue past that phrase, wondering what memories this discovery stirrs up for them, and wondering what I, when in my 'winter' will remember of by babies. Fantastic.
Thanks for the enlightenment, Mel. I must be getting mentally lazy, or 'old timers' is beginning to move in as I didn't see any of this on first reading.
When I was teaching, I was always delighted when enlightened, in any way, by my pupils. I'm glad I still enjoy being taught by others (especially my children, no matter how old they get.).
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