Writing Fukushima #9 The Forest Green Tree Frogs of Kawauchi Village

The frogs are chirping

to rippling water and

the murmuring trees

(sazanami ni kigi no sayagi ni kawazu naku)

※kawazu (frog): From spring to early summer, which is the frogs' breeding season, their cries fill the ponds, marshes, and fields.

"...Guura shiariruda kenta ruteeru torekanda...."

(From 'Gobiraff's Soliloquy,' in Kusano Shinpei, "Frogs: The Definitive Edition")

This line is from 'Gobiraff's Soliloquy' (Kobiraffu no dokuhaku), a monologue by a venerable old frog written by Kusano Shinpei. Composed in what might be called "Frogese," it is accompanied by the poet's translation into ordinary Japanese. In a different part of the same poem, Gobiraff says: "Don't think. Stay simple. Dream. We have the longest history of any animal on earth, which is nothing special, but we can take pride in it." Kusano Shinpei, "the frog poet," loved nature. Almost every year he visited Kawauchi Village, and it is now known nationally as the habitat of the green tree frog.

At the end of June, as the early summer rain fell, I visited Kawauchi Village. We approached it along the prefectural road which came into Kawauchi Village from Tomioka Town. On the day of the nuclear accident, this road was heavily congested with cars fleeing from Tomioka to Kawauchi. The anxiety of being pursued by radioactivity, this invisible thing, must have been enormous. Afterwards the entire village of Kawauchi Village was ordered to evacuate too.

Except for one part of the area, the residents of Kawauchi Village have begun to return. Rice planting is over, and there are signs of life in the houses. Hebusu Pond,* which is the forest green frog's habitat, is at the top of the 842 meter high Mt. Hebusu. We drove up the mountain to the top, walking the last 200 meters. Suddenly, in the middle of a water-oak forest, the pond appeared. It was as mysterious as something out of a fairy tale. In June, the forest green frogs lay their foam-like eggs in the branches of the trees jutting out over the water. When they hatch, the foam drops and releases the tadpoles into the water. Up close I saw that these foamy egg nests were bigger than I thought, about 20 centimeters in diameter. There was a watchman's house on the river bank, occupied by Mr. Shiro Shishigari, who said, "During this period even if I am alone all day I am never bored." At their peak, he told me, the foamy egg nests are pure white and have a pearl-like lustre. In the pond bordered by this pearly radiance grow water plants, and yellow iris and calamus bloom as well. Everywhere the surface of the water reflected the radiance of life. Even after the nuclear accident, said Mr. Shishigari, the forest green frogs are reproducing just as before. "Nature is strong," he said, smiling. A gust of wind blew through and suddenly all the frogs began to chirp.

There is a heart-warming story about Kawauchi Village and Kusano Shinpei. One day Shinpei, who had been made an honorary citizen of the village, received 100 sacks of charcoal from it at his home in Tokyo as an honorarium. In return, he donated 3,000 books from his personal library to the village. This was the inspiration for the villagers to construct a mountain retreat for him, which they christened the Tenzan Library (Tenzan Bunko).

Though a modern building, Tenzan Bunko is distinguished by its thatched roof and was built so as to blend in with its natural surroundings. The Tenzan Festival is held every July on the anniversary of its 1966 completion. Shinpei loved this simple festival whose center was a potluck dinner to which people bring freshwater fish they catch themselves and home-made dishes of mountain vegetables they collect in the wild, and which is followed by local folk entertainment with traditional Japanese performing arts in the garden. The Tenzan Festival is still celebrated even though Shinpei is dead; it was held even in the year of the Great Earthquake. When I visited the library, greenery shone on the fireside where Shinpei used to sit and all was filled with silence. For him, Kawauchi Village must have been a place of peace and the fountain spring of poetry.

I began by quoting Shinpei's translation of part of 'Gobiraff's Soliloquy.' In another part of that poem, Gobiraff says: "Our happiness comes from the simple joys." How would the venerable old frog feel about the world we live in now?

* Hebusu Pond

A small pond of only 1200 square meters, Hebusu Pond has been designated a National Natural Monument as the breeding ground of the forest green frog. On the banks of this pond, which is surrounded by magnificent deciduous broad-leaf trees, stands a poem stone with this tanka poem by Kusano Shinpei:

Let them increase,

the forest frogs — on the shores of

Abukuma's Hebusu Pond

and in the shadows

of the water-oak trees

(umawaru ya mori no kawazu wa abukuma no hebusu no numabe mizunara no kage)

Haiku and text: Madoka Mayuzumi

Translation: Janine Beichman

Photo credit: Fukushima-Minpo Co., Ltd.

First publication: 8 July 2014, Fukushima-Minpo Newspaper