On Jan. 4, 1942, less than a month after Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor, Katsue Kitazono -- the spelling that John Solt gives the name in "Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning" is the one that the poet devised for foreign consumption -- wrote a poem, which may be translated as:
The winter day / opened with a wind / and darkened with the wind. // The frosty garden / remained a mire / all day. // Above the hazel tree / stars / shone in the wind. // Nevertheless / on various tropical islands / the Imperial Army was engaged in ferocious battles. // A! / Officers and men of fierce loyalty / shouldering East Asia's fate for a thousand years! // Their bravery, / unprecedented / distant advances! // I / beside tiny tea utensils / faced my desk all day. // In the dark room / thoughts flowed, / faint light drifted.
Kitazono published this poem, titled "Fuyu" ("Winter"), along with 25 others, in his 10th book, "Fudo" ("Climate"), in early 1943, and noted in his afterword that the book contained 26 poems. In 1986, however, compiling an 881-page tome of Kitazono's "complete poems," Fujitomi Yasuo dropped "Fuyu" and changed the number of poems mentioned in the afterword to 25.