Onions as a history lesson?

            Naomi Shihab Nye wrote a great poem about, believe it or not, an onion. Tis onion is incorporated into the story as if it were really something else. This is the poem:

“When I think how far the onion has traveled

just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise

All small forgotten miracles,

crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,

pearly layers in smooth agreement,

the way the knife enters the onion

and onion falls apart on the chopping block,

a history revealed.

And I would never scold the onion

for causing tears.

It is rights that tears fall

for something so small and forgotten.

How at meal, we sit to eat,

commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma

but never on the translucence of onion,

now limp, now divided,

or its traditionally honorable career:

For the sake of others,

disappear.”

             -Naomi Shihab Nye

This onion that Nye talks about is figurative, could stand for any number of things. Before the poem there is a small fact about the history of the onion, being that it is originally said to have come from India and was brought along on trips to other parts of the world from there. This figurative onion could represent any number of things. But I think it could be referring to history itself.

The words that stick out to me in the poem would be “a history revealed”. This history could be the onion’s history but it could also be the world’s history. Like an onion, history has layers, or otherwise known as different eras. Throughout these eras, there have been wars, tears, loss and victories. These layers make up what we have and know today. Like an onion, these layers can be pulled apart or left as a whole, just like history can be focused on one area or another. The only difference is how it is done.

Though these types of things happened they are often forgotten about. No one thinks to talk about history at the dinner table, just like no one thinks about talking about onions that were used in the meal. We have come a long way as a civilization just as the onion has gone a long way in traveling across the world and being all over the world.