Disrupted seasons leave haiku poets lost for words

Wooden tablets dotted along a path between office buildings and the Sendaibori river  in eastern Tokyo mark the start of a journey by Japan's most revered poet that would result in his greatest collection of verse.

- Justin McCurry

The tablets showing haiku by Matsuo Bashō are steeped in the seasonal certainties of the late 1600s. There are references to full moons, chirping cicadas and, of course, cherry blossoms.

Almost four centuries later, Basho's words continue to inspire admiration and countless amateur exponents of the 17-syllable form, but they are also a reminder that haiku faces what some of its enthusiasts fear is an existential threat: the climate crisis.

The poems displayed at regular intervals along the promenade are intended to evoke the cooler climes of autumn, but this year they feel off-kilter.

The walk begins outside the hut Bashō stayed in before setting off on an odyssey that would result in his most famous work, Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North).

The sun is beginning to dip, but the air is still heavy with humidity. The exertions of walkers and cyclists, in T-shirts and shorts, making their way to the crown of the bridge are written in the sweat on their brows.

One of the poems encapsulates the feeling of seasonal misalignment.

A whiteness whiter than the stones of Stone Mountain
The wind in autumn

Basho wrote those words after a visit to a hilltop temple in near the Japan Sea coast, on 18 September 1689.