Incredibly powerful image achieved with such simple precise words. Bravo Roberta. (Unfortunately, I think most people know exactly to what “last month too” refers)
A common excuse when someone is rushed to hospital, or even before that, when a police officer asks how they got a broken nose, broken ribs, a huge amount of facial bruising, is that the person with the injuries will often say they bumped into a door, hit their head by accident at a door frame, fell down stairs.
Sometimes the attacked person (I don’t like the term ‘victim’) might use the same excuse more than once, so police officers or Emergency Room nurses/doctors will hear it over and over again.
As haiku will often be a poem that uses seasonal imagery, then acorns thudding down from great trees adds another dimension.
Some partners (various genders) are habitually attacked, and will protector their attacker with weak excuses until they are eventually murdered weeks, months, years later.
Some are thrown out into the rain, and the sound of those acorns thudding is a cruel irony.
I wrote this about experiences of domestic violence. it also is a hat tip to a powerful novel by Roddy Doyle: The Woman Who Walked into Doors. “Acorn rain”.is an image from a well loved poem by Kristen Deming which I leaned on to get to the next two lines.
I’m a big fan of Roberta Beary. I need help with this haiku, however. I don’t understand ‘she walked into a door last month, too’. Is this referring to walking through a door? American usage would interpret it as literally bumping into a door.
Abused women often make up excuses for the bruises, and one of the most common is walking into a door. I must admit, I had to think a few seconds before it “hit me in the face.”
11 thoughts on “acorn rain”
Incredibly powerful image achieved with such simple precise words. Bravo Roberta. (Unfortunately, I think most people know exactly to what “last month too” refers)
Thanks Caroline;good to hear my words spoke to you.
I love the sense of rain dislocating us in this haiku!
Caroline
An interesting take, thanks!
A common excuse when someone is rushed to hospital, or even before that, when a police officer asks how they got a broken nose, broken ribs, a huge amount of facial bruising, is that the person with the injuries will often say they bumped into a door, hit their head by accident at a door frame, fell down stairs.
Sometimes the attacked person (I don’t like the term ‘victim’) might use the same excuse more than once, so police officers or Emergency Room nurses/doctors will hear it over and over again.
As haiku will often be a poem that uses seasonal imagery, then acorns thudding down from great trees adds another dimension.
Some partners (various genders) are habitually attacked, and will protector their attacker with weak excuses until they are eventually murdered weeks, months, years later.
Some are thrown out into the rain, and the sound of those acorns thudding is a cruel irony.
Power imagery.
Many thanks,Alan, for your insights!
I wrote this about experiences of domestic violence. it also is a hat tip to a powerful novel by Roddy Doyle: The Woman Who Walked into Doors. “Acorn rain”.is an image from a well loved poem by Kristen Deming which I leaned on to get to the next two lines.
Thank you, Roberta. It’s beautifully written and clear now. I now owe you big time.
I’m a big fan of Roberta Beary. I need help with this haiku, however. I don’t understand ‘she walked into a door last month, too’. Is this referring to walking through a door? American usage would interpret it as literally bumping into a door.
Abused women often make up excuses for the bruises, and one of the most common is walking into a door. I must admit, I had to think a few seconds before it “hit me in the face.”
A young relative thought I was writing about her propensity to be clumsy, I was glad she didn’t ‘get it.’