Monday’s challenge at dVerse is a January-themed haibun: a Japanese form which combines prose and poetry.
One case of bubbly remains, to be returned to the vendor, and the last party of the season is in the books. Cooks kick off musty clogs in the back hall. Starched-shirt servers flock around the leftovers, picking and scrambling, all decorum of the serving floor flown. A kiss and a grope in the keg room to ring in the year, shots line up on the bar. New Years never changes. In the office, the chef massages the 13-hour-day knots in her calves, as the floor manager counts cash. The clients were happy, but January is a quarterly tax month.
past dark Solstice’ sleep
three crisp days, so cold and clear
a respite from rain
Thank you for joining this week’s Haibun Monday, Nora, with a nice precise piece of prose and a gorgeous haiku – I love the ‘three crisp days’! I enjoyed reading about New year from another perspective – is it a hotel or a restaurant you describe? I also love the rich language in the description of the ‘Starched-shirt servers flock[ing] around the leftovers, picking and scrambling, all decorum of the serving floor flown’, with a ‘kiss and a grope in the keg room to ring in the year’!
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Thank you, Kim! This is meant to be a restaurant, with all the guests gone, when the staff can finally relax. Thank you for the haibun challenge.
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I keep forgetting this fact of January for US citizens: “January is a quarterly tax month.”
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And it’s usually a doozy!
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I’m also an accountant and January is indeed a tough tax time 😂
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Happy new year!! Good thing that is over and we can turn into a new page. Thankfully our tax time is on April, not January.
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I used to be a waittress or watron as they are now called and was reminded of exactly what you described. It’s thankfully years in the past and I don’t have to do that anymore. One manager pinched my bum as I was loaded down with plates on the way into the pantry. He got screamed at though and everyone could hear, even the customers! A wonder I kept the job after that.
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not an outdoor scene but one that represents January from the inside, i like that perspective, when the party is over and the staff relax, love the little romance when no one was looking!
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