A perfect summer, the best I’d ever seen here, with unbroken days of blue skies and sunshine, ended abruptly. A rain front moved in, settling over the Sea of Japan from Yamaguchi north to Yamagata. The change was sudden, as though some unseen hand had thrown a switch and the season turned overnight.
On the ground, autumn declares itself with chestnuts, their spiny husks splitting, scattering glossy brown seeds. But the competition between gatherer and weevil began long before. While the nuts were still hidden in thick green burs on the tree, the Japanese chestnut weevil (Curculio sikkimensis)—small, persistent—bored narrow holes and tucked her eggs inside. The larvae hatched and fed secretly on the flesh of the nut, waiting until the husks split and the chestnuts began to fall to make their escape from their carved exit holes.
Windy days are best for gathering—gusts shake loose both the sound fruit and those already hollowed by weevil grubs, and the ground beneath the trees becomes a patient hunter’s domain. Each chestnut must be inspected, turned in the hand to check for the telltale pinprick holes. Miss one, and you’ll find a wriggling grub later, or worse—a hollow shell that fooled you with its weight.
Susuki—Japanese pampas grass (Miscanthus sinensis)—sweeps the hillsides in ghostly tufts, silver as river light. The plumes dance on the wind, marking the new season’s arrival with silent grace.
Along the edges of the brown paddies and the paths leading to hillside cemeteries, higanbana—spider lilies (Lycoris radiata)—have appeared overnight. Bare stems crowned with flame-red petals that curve back like reaching fingers. They bloom precisely during higan (彼岸), the autumn equinox week when Buddhists believe the boundary between this world and “the other shore” grows thin. The name 彼岸 means “that shore”—the far shore of enlightenment across the river of suffering.
During this liminal time, families visit graves, clean stones, and make offerings. The higanbana mark the threshold, their sudden appearance without leaves a reminder of the crossing between worlds. They cluster where the stone path bends toward the temple grounds.
On the breeze, the signature of summer fades. Where cicadas droned and vibrated the air, now tree frogs gurgle from hidden grass, filling the hush with gentle percussion.
The breeze also carries smoke. Smoke rises from the paddies now brown. After harvest, farmers gather straw and dried rice stalks, setting them alight to clear the fields. The flames consume the remnants of the season, and sweet, earthy smoke rolls across the landscape. It’s a ritual of renewal—restoring the soil and preparing it for winter’s long embrace.
I walk the treeline at dawn, stepping over split husks, pocketing the sound chestnuts and leaving the hollow ones for the crows. The air carries woodsmoke and the last of the morning’s chill. Somewhere in the grass, a tree frog gurgles once, then stops—listening, perhaps, for what comes next.
Overnight it turned—
tree frogs call through rising smoke,
autumn claims the hills