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As the seasons defy norms
TOKYO
Poets are struggling
---文章选自美国时代周刊亚洲版杂志
"HoW MANY, many things/they calto mind/these cherry blossoms!"the poet Basho once wrote of Japan'sfavourite flower. The blossoms have longprovoked reflections on beauty, transience andthe unceasingrhythms ofthenatural world. This year, their annualappearance has many thinking abouthow those rhythms are changing. Thecherry trees in Tokyo began flowering onMarch 14th, tying the record for theearliest start since theJapan Meteorological Agencybegan monitoringin1953.In Kyoto the trees reached full bloom onMarch 26th, The earliest date in 1,200years of records. Scientists believe climate change is to blame
Soon sakura may come notjustearly,but in less profusion. The cherry treecommon in most of Japan, the SomeiYoshino breed, requires a protracted coldspell in autumn and winter in order toproduce its resplendentbudsinspring.Tubing must remain below 80C foraround 40 days-something that is nolonger a certaintyin parts ofsouthernJapan. Happily, scientists at Riken, aresearch institute, have created alesspicky variety. Abe Tomoko and her colleagues scrambled cherry stones' DNA byirradiating them in a particle accelerator.The result is the Nishina Otome variety,which still fowers after a mild winter.
It is not just cherry trees that climatechange is confusing, however, but alsothe poets who write paeans to them.Seasons have long occupied a prominentplace in Japanese literature: Kokinwakashu, a poetry anthology published inthe ioth century, opens with six chaptersof seasonal poems. Basho, who popularised haikus in the 1zth century, tended toinclude in his poems kigo, or seasonalwords, to anchor them temporally andthus evoke a certain emotional state
Over the centuries, poets compiledalmanacs of kigo, categorising mostnatural and even some human phenomena by season, or even by particularmonths. But as the climate warms andweather becomes more extreme, kigo areslipping from their seasonal mooringsThis "season creep" makes it harder forcontemporary readers to understandtraditional haiku, says David McMurray. who teaches the form at the International University of Kagoshima. A poem thatmentions typhoons is supposed to evokeautumn, but they now occur as earlyasMay and as late as December, lamentsMiyashita Emiko, a poet. The fluctuatingsakura, although worying, are still evocative. They bring to mind "the danger ofthe situation we are in".
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