[About the Book]
The scent of the wind, the weight of rain, the warmth in another person’s gaze-
these are things the author never fully noticed in youth.

Now, in the later years of life, the author begins to discover within fleeting moments of everyday life the delicate space between living and growing old.

This book is a carefully crafted collection of 500 tanka poems and six reflective essays written by a Japanese author. Tanka-Japan’s traditional poetic form-captures subtle emotions within a compact structure. In these poems lives a quiet sorrow and deep kindness that only a long life can bring. With each page, landscapes and feelings gradually merge, rising gently in the reader’s imagination.

The accompanying essays reflect quietly on Japan’s natural landscapes and cultural life, even as modern development covers the land with asphalt. Through these reflections, the author reexamines the relationship between nature and humanity, and contemplates the meanings of memory and time.

What emerges through these poems is not the sadness of aging, but the beauty of growing old.
They are poems of the heart-guiding readers to accept, with dignity and grace, the quiet final chapter of life that awaits us all.

What does it mean to grow old?
What does it mean to live?

For anyone who wishes to reflect deeply on life.
For those searching for meaning within nature, humanity, and the passage of time.

A book that gently clears the mind each time it is read.

[Author Profile]
Katsumi Tsuji

Born in 1931
Wakayama Prefecture, Japan

Published Works:
•”Winter That Soaks Into the Palm” (1969, Tanka Newspaper Publishing)
•”Edge Land” (1984, Ishikawa Publishing)
•”Grass Shadow” (1995, Sunagoya Publishing)
•”One Thousand Pieces of Wire” (2001)
•”Ensei” (2012, Kadokawa Shoten)
•”Tanka Collection: Blue Grove” (2014, Bungeisha)