I have returned, scarred but triumphant. Every day the air is getting warmer. HOSHINO Aki is appearing in commercials for deodorant powered by the similarity of her given name to the word waki, "underarm". The sakura are looking ready to drop.

Here is a delightfully creepy poem called "Smoking at night with a rose" (夜の煙草と薔薇) by KATŌ Kaishun.

On the table stands a rose,
One red rose, awake in this late night.
I seat myself before it and light up.

A fog of melancholy, this;
A smokescreen of vexation--No.
At night, tobacco smoke's a liquid
Strange and burning smooth.

I bite down on it tightly,
Taste the menace of the night.
This is no human hunger, but
Some terrible other lust.

O rose, breathe deep yourself as well
Of these uncanny fumes
Revere in praise this beautiful dark power.

Our dim room in the night,
O rose, brims over now
With sensual illusion, with struck-dumbness, with allure.

So intoxicated, you would
Soon leap for my spirit, I suppose,
But rose,
I would eat you first.