Spring
- Spring (haru): the name of season is a kigo or season word. Other combinations are spring begins (Haru tatsu), signs of spring (haru meku), sea in the spring (haru no umi), spring is gone (Yuku haru). Higan of spring (春彼岸, haru higan, literary beyond the border of this world), a week around the time of the Spring Equinox (shunbun) is a period set aside for Buddhists to soothe their ancestors' souls and for visiting graves. This recurs during the Higan of autumn.
- February (kisaragi or nigatsu), March (yayoi or sangatsu) and April (uzuki or shigatsu). The fourth month (shigatsu) in the Japanese calendar is equivalent roughly to April in the Gregorian calendar. Therefore end of March (yayoijin) is equivalent to end of spring (haru no hate).
- Warm (atatakashi or nurumu): all spring. As the weather changes from the cold of winter, any warming is noticed. Water also becomes warm (mizu nurumu).
- Spring mist or spring haze (kasumi): all spring. The daytime haze of spring. The nighttime haze during spring that can obscure the moon is called oboro. Haruichiban, the first strong southerly wind of spring, is used as a kigo in modern haiku.
- Ume blossom: early spring
- Uguisu (鶯, Japanese bush warbler (sometimes translated as Japanese nightingale), Cettia diphone): early spring. The bird is used as an example of sweet sounds. Uguisu were mentioned in the preface to the Kokinshū. It is often associated with ume blossoms and new growth in early Japanese waka and is regarded as a harbinger of spring (春告鳥, harutsugedori, literary "bird that announces the arrival of spring").
- cherry blossoms (sakura) and cherry blossom–viewing (hanami): late spring (April). For the Japanese, cherry blossoms are such a common topic that in just mentioning blossoms (hana) in haiku it is assumed they are cherry blossoms. Blossom-viewing is an occasion for partying with friends or coworkers.
- Hanamatsuri (Blossom Festival), Buddhist festival celebrating the birth of Buddha, on 8 April.
- Frogs (kawazu): all spring (February–April). Noted for their loud singing
- Skylarks (hibari): all spring. Noted for their songs in flight, swallows (tsubame) mid-spring, twittering (saezuri): all spring. The chirping of songbirds
- Hinamatsuri (Girl's Day) Doll Festival and Hina (doll): a traditional Japanese festival for girls on 3 March.
Read more about this topic: Kigo, Common Kigo in Japanese Haiku
Famous quotes containing the word spring:
“Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The spring over there takes you by the throat, the flowers blooming by the thousands over white walls. If you strolled around for an hour in the hills surrounding my town, you would return with the odor of honey in your clothes.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)