Naomi Nomura
Winter Squash
There sounds the five-o’clock chime distantly. The west windows are blazing. She stands up, turns on TV. The anchorman of the evening news speaks of the day’s occurrences. She enters the kitchen and clicks the light. A Kabocha squash, a share from her neighbour’s garden from two days before, is still on the bench. She gives thought to how to consume it alone. She worries if she can slice its thick skin without her husband’s strong hand. With pushes and pulls she manages to cut it in half. The simmered Kabocha, her husband’s favourite, makes a heap in the bowl. He would often toss a steaming piece in his mouth, claiming “Perks of the cutter!” and another in hers, “Perks of the chef!”
dinner table one chopstick drops to the floor
About the Author
A Japanese housewife, Naomi Nomura is the mother of two sons and lives near Tokyo with her husband. She encountered haiku in English in 2017, and it soon joined her other interests: English, cooking, and ballroom dancing.
I love this.
Thank you so much, Diane!
Dinner table. The place where the family gets together. Where we take the time to sit together and go over the day’s news/events … replaced by news from a TV anchorman with whom we have no relation, who we don’t care about… Wow.
Can one eat with one chopstick? Poking at every morsel of food, tearing an irreparable hole in it before being able to eat it… Loved it.
Swati, I’m very happy that you loved it. Thank you!
The prose itself was moving because I felt it was going to be about loss, the word ‘winter’ in the title was a clue but the haiku at the was very atmospheric. I could hear the lone chopstick clattering on the floor. Beautifully done.
Karen, thank you very much!
What a poignant haibun…understated yet clutches the heart! Congratulations dear Naomi, loved the precise prose and the touching haiku.
Neena, thanks a lot. Comments from the readers are really encouraging.