Browsing a blog about Miguel Hernández I find this beautiful photograph that illustrates the poem "The Nanas of the Onion", one of the best known and exciting texts by Miguel Hernández. The photograph evokes beautifully the following verses:
In the cradle of hunger my child was. With onion blood it was breastfed.
Child flies in the double moon of the chest: he, sad onion, you, satisfied.
Every time I imagine the child "flying" on the double moon of his mother's chest I admire more the voice of this poet, who leaves us as beautiful and unforgettable metaphors as the one that refers to the baby's first teeth.
We remind you that at the time he wrote these verses, the poet was in jail suffering, in addition to the denial of his freedom, the pain of knowing that his wife and children mourned his absence and suffered hardships. His wife would tell him in one of his letters that I only ate bread and onion.
On September 12, 1939, with his son Manolito of little more than ten months, Miguel sends his wife "The Nanas of the Onion", in which the poet wishes to protect his son and warns him of the adversities of the world, evoking the happy life you want for the little one. In the same letter he would say to his wife:
These days I have been thinking about your situation, every day more difficult. The smell of the onion you eat reaches me here, and my child will feel indignant about breastfeeding and getting onion juice instead of milk. For your comfort, I send you those coplillas that I have done, since here there is no other task for me to write to you or despair ...
The "onion juice" is obviously an exaggeration, although it is true that breast milk would probably have a certain onion flavor, since the foods taken by the mother influence the taste of milk.
I tried to trace the origin of this image, without success. Although I have found the image of the baby sucking without the onion on the side, so it is a photomontage to illustrate the poem.
But in any case it is a Nice image for "The Nanas of the Onion" by Miguel Hernández, poem that I invite you to hear from the voice of Joan Manuel Serrat.
