Japan's 72 Microseasons - #14

"Wild Geese Return North"

Apr 12, 2023

April 10 - 14
鴻鴈北
こうがんかえる
Kōgan kaeru
Wild geese return north

There are many ways to mark the passing of a year. Changes in weather, sure, but also comings and goings. This kō, when set after our previous arrival, demonstrates well this other natural cycle.

During this period, fuyu-dori (冬鳥, birds who winter in Japan)1 head back north while natsu-dori (夏鳥, birds who summer in Japan)2 come up from the south to spend their half of the year in the Japanese islands. So it is that swallows swap for geese. This kō in specific centers on Anser fabalis, the Taiga bean goose, which make their way back to Siberia.

This changing of the avian guard—winter waterfowl for spring songbirds—with its distinct demarcation of the two halves of the year, has long been the subject of various poems and pieces of art due to its poetic metaphor. Let’s have one of each:

帰る雁にちがふ雲路のつばくらめ　
こまかにこれや書ける玉章
Kaeru gan ni chigafu kumoji no tsubakurame
Komaka ni kore ya kakeru gyokushō
Passing each other in fine lines across the clouds
Swallows and geese writing a splendid letter to spring
- Saigyō Hōshi (12th c.)3

(by Hokusai, 18th c. | courtesy of ukiyo-e.org)

These birds that come and go with the changing of the seasons can be called watari-dori (渡り鳥), which means “crossing over bird,” but more appropriate for this newsletter is their other name: kōchō (候鳥). That kō is, as you may expect or remember, the same as for our 72 microseasons, the shichi-jū-ni kō (七十二候).

The name of this kō itself includes all manner of geese and non-geese leaving for cooler climes, but the first kanji character here (鴻, read on its own as ōtori) classically refers to our bean goose, more commonly called in modern Japanese hishikui (菱喰, lit. “eater of water chestnuts”). Before a proper name and scientific taxonomy was attached to it, though, the character itself long just meant "the big goose," with ties to the mythological Chinese animal Dapeng4. Like our swallows, you’ll find a common thread in ancient interpretations of migratory birds that tie them to fantastic, unknown worlds. As it happens, in Chinese mythology the Dapeng would fly off towards the mysterious, dark South to mark the coming of winter.

(a variety of geese (left), hishi water chestnuts (right))

The 鴈/gan part of kōgan—the second kanji character of this kō’s name—represents all geese smaller than The Big Goose, and is usually written 雁 when not in 1/72nd of an ancient calendar. Kōgan (鴻雁, as it can also be written) can be understood then as a perfect set enclosing all geese great and small.

Our last character in this kō, 北, is another of the Koyomi’s interesting “creative readings.” Its standard reading is kita, which means “north” (as in the cardinal direction). But here, its given the reading kaeru, which means “to return home.” Through this, we can interpret a message of these variously-sized geese pointed north, where their home must lie.

As they take off towards the north, the sight of a sky full of migrating birds returning home after the winter is called tori-gumori (鳥曇り), literally “cloudy with birds.”

Aside from bookending the winter season, wild geese also lend their name to an unlikely subject: cute and colorful sweets called rakugan (落雁). There’s a great, in-depth writeup on the website Food in Japan, but one creative theory as to how the name came about is that these rice-flour sweets took inspiration in the patterns formed by kōgan alighting in winter landscapes. While I couldn’t find any pictures of such, it’s true enough that rakugan and other traditional tea ceremony sweets like wasanbon often take their designs from animals and natural scenes, and with the other art these geese have inspired over the centuries, it’s certainly believable enough.

Speaking of tasty things, seasonal dishes and decorations for Kō 14 should feature:

● Seasonal vegetable
tara-no-me, たらの芽, young shoots of the Angelica tree5
● Seasonal seafood
hotaru-ika, 蛍烏賊, firefly squid
● Seasonal flower
okinagusa, 翁草, narrow-leaf pasque flower6

Hellos and goodbyes. Starts and endings and starts. If not days and months on a calendar, we often think back to these points of transition when remembering where and who we were during the year. Leaving your hometown, starting a new job, changing schools, making friends, they’re all ways to mark time. But it doesn’t always have to be such big, life-altering events—if we can slow down and notice how the skies this week seem a little different to last, then we can maybe appreciate what’s here right now before things change again.

Of course, not all change is permanent and not all goodbyes are forever: our geese will be back in Kō 49. And so the seasons, unmoored from human counting, will continue turning in their reliable, ever-revolving circle.

See you next kō~

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[Images & info by kurashikata.com, kurashi-no-hotorisya.jp, 543life.com, and Wikipedia except where otherwise noted]

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*one of Japan’s Three Great Birds, mentioned back in Kō 2

I couldn’t find an existing literary translation of this poem, and waka are not my specialty so pardon any clumsiness on my part

Note: “dapeng” also means “the big goose”

If you can find it, that is—dubbed the “King of Wild Edible Plants” (山菜の王様), it’s a rarely foraged treat

Called “old man’s beard” in Iwate Prefecture’s local dialect, and also features in a fairytale, where an ant used its fine silver threads to soothe a sick friend

72 Microseasons

Japan's 72 Microseasons - #14

"Wild Geese Return North"

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