歳時記

Fields or plains that look desolate and chillingly forlorn with the arrival of winter are called "winter fields" or "winter plains". The season word "withered field" specifically carries the sense that trees and plants in such fields have thoroughly succumbed to winter's cold. The image may well include fields covered with frost or snow, but often seems to suggest a cold wind blowing across a field of withered grasses--a landscape of essential winter bleakness. Because covering vegetation is gone, paths or trails through the fields are clearly visible, as are any houses, and the sight of a person in such a landscape is enough to catch the viewer's full attention. Season words for such sights include "withered-field path", ". . . house", and ". . . person". The distinctive loneliness of withered winter fields has been a topic of Japanese poetry since medieval times, but the season word kareno became especially popular among haikai poets during the Edo period. One of the best examples is Bashō's famous death verse (cited below), which suggests that he took the topic "withered field" to point to his state of mind as his life drew to an end. A bonfire is burning. In the background lies the expanse of a wide, desolate field. Far off, someone is visible, walking away into the distance. Perhaps this is a scene from the author's experience, but more likely it is an imagined landscape, evoking someone in the strange isolation of contemporary life.

When the temperature outdoors falls to or below freezing, ice forms--a familiar experience of winter in Japan. In homes where central heating is not the rule (as is true throughout much of rural and even urban Japan), ice may cover the surface of buckets or pots of water in the kitchen on a cold winter morning. Garden ponds, marshes, and lakes freeze over. In the mountains of the northern regions of Japan, ice becomes thick enough that one can walk or skate on the surface. Some people enjoy cutting holes in the ice on lakes to fish. In the far north, the ocean freezes. "Ice lakes" (氷湖【ひょうこ】 hyōko) and "iced sea" (氷海【ひょうかい】 hyōkai) are season words under the topic "ice." When the cold is extreme, even waterfalls freeze solid--"freezing waterfall" (凍滝【いてたき】 itetaki) and "waterfall iced up" (滝氷る【たきこおる】 taki kōru) are words used in haikai for such phenomena. When rivers freeze over, brushwood may be laid on the surface to form a temporary bridge, called an "ice bridge" (氷橋【こおりばし】 kōribashi). When the frozen surface of a river or lake shines like a mirror it is called an "ice mirror". A large pond is frozen over. From its bank, children throw stones. These skid across the ice before coming to a stop. The game is to see whose stone slides the furthest.

When droplets of melting snow from the roof of a house trickle over the eaves and freeze before falling to the ground, icicles are formed. In the Snow Country of northern and western Japan, rows of dozens of icicles adorn the eaves of houses, glittering in the morning sun--a memorable spectacle. Narrowing to a point, they look like swords of ice. Icicles can be seen in the mountains on the tips of branches or at the edge of crags and cliffs. At the rim of a waterfall they may form a curtain. Taruhi is an ancient word for icicles, and they are also called "silver bamboo" (銀竹【ぎんちく】ginchiku). The word hyōchū written with the same kanji characters as tsurara (氷柱), refers to something quite different, also called "flower ice" (花氷【はなごおり】hanagōri)--flowers and leaves frozen inside large blocks of ice used to supply decorative cooling, particularly in late summer (for which it is a season word). [Michinoku is the old name for the provinces of northeastern Honshu, an area once considered wild and poor, distant from the wealth and power of Tokyo and points southwest. It is also colder, hence producing larger icicles.] The author, who was born in the northeast of Japan, is dreaming fond fairy tales of the world of his childhood. The image of an icicle with stars inside is richly nostalgic, and suggests the idea of the "flower ice" of summer--a block of ice with flowers frozen inside.