Japan’s haiku poets lost for words as climate crisis disrupts seasons

Japan’s haiku poets have long been able to rely on the common experience of the changing of the seasons, but now some fear they face an existential threat. Photograph: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images

Wooden tablets dotted along a path between office buildings and the Sendaibori river in eastern Tokyo mark the start of a journey by Japan’s most revered poet that would result in his greatest collection of verse.

The tablets showing haiku by Matsuo Bashō are steeped in the seasonal certainties of the late 1600s. There are references to full moons, chirping cicadas and, of course, cherry blossoms.