The Short-Grass Field and Other Writings

On a stifling night, a painter notices a woman at the window of an empty neighboring house. Their conversation leads from garden insects and memories of pregnancy to a hospital, a wandering priest, and a visitor who cannot be seen by anyone else. A simple request for secrecy becomes increasingly troubling.

In A Spring Day, Later, the softness of sunlight and the beauty of a landscape deepen a woman’s longing for someone she cannot meet. A message entrusted to child lion dancers takes an unforeseen course. A Moonlit Rickshaw turns a late journey home into an encounter with gratitude, shame, and a mother’s memory. Horse Chestnuts follows an exhausted traveler through flooded roads and mountain kindness, toward a keepsake that still speaks.

These complete writings are accompanied by Kyōka’s essay on the music of prose, with its insistence that words must reach the ear as well as the eye. Notes explain literary references and original readings; supplied section numbers and verse lines are preserved.