Memories of the Wetland | Requiem di torbiere | Kazemakase Literature Club 《Rain》

◇ Memories of the Wetland

The pre-dawn rain has stopped, and I am strolling through the Hirugano Highlands (Takasu-cho, Gujo City, Gifu Prefecture) since the morning. This place has become a regular annual tradition for me at this time of year.

The Hirugano Highlands are a puddle collected in a narrow basin in the mountains. Under low-temperature and high-humidity conditions, undecomposed plant remains turned into peat, and Japan's southernmost high-moor wetland was created over thousands of years.

It is said that in the past, the terrain was difficult to understand, a wilderness where one could get lost in the forest and where leeches lived in the wetlands. After the war, repatriates from Manchuria pushed forward with development, transforming the "wilderness" into a resort of milk, daikon radishes, and snow.

Afterward, the land developed for vacation homes was abandoned with the collapse of the bubble economy. What would have taken thousands of years through natural wetland succession (the process of progressing from wetland to land and then to forest) was completed in an instant by human hands. In the end, there are plots where vacation homes were never built, and buildings left to rot due to a lack of maintenance.
They are covered by trees in the blink of an eye. Nature is covering them up completely.

However, most of the wetlands, which had been nurtured over eternal time, holding the thousands-of-years-old memories of peat and the decades-old dreams of a nation of families, have been lost in this way.

Whether by natural phenomena or human intervention, it seems that "wetlands" are destined to disappear—setting aside "those" of the human world.

Oops, to say any more would truly be a slip of the tongue.

◇ Rain Falling in the Forest

Changes in vegetation are also affecting the fauna.
Even in the time I have spent visiting, grassland birds have decreased significantly. The chestnut-eared bunting and the Latham's snipe have lost the stage where they sing and dance for love, and with the disappearance of the shrikes and oriental reed warblers that serve as hosts for their eggs, the breeding of the common cuckoo is also in trouble.

In the forest zone, the complex songs of the narcissus flycatcher echo. They do not sing in earnest unless there are rivals. It is rare to find a place where they sing for so long. A pair of Japanese woodpeckers call to each other, confirming their love while circling around a dead tree.

In the forest that serves as a water source, Japanese beech and Mongolian oak trees grow lush with leaves.
A strong wind shakes their treetops, dropping the remnants of yesterday's rain with a pitter-patter. It is the first drop that gives life to the earth. The terrain slopes gently to the north, and while most of the fallen rain flows into the Shokawa River system, it is said that some also pours into the Nagara River system.

The destination of this single drop of rain has not yet been decided.

──Whether it will fall toward the Pacific side or the Sea of Japan side.

◇ Dampness on the Soles of My Feet

I walked too slowly and forgot the passage of time.
No, the time that flows in the wetland should be slow, like the wind that blows there.
I take a major shortcut on my usual course and return to the starting point.

The dampness of the wetland remained faintly on the soles of my shoes.
Along with unspoken thoughts, layered like sphagnum moss.

(Appendix: Mountain Hiking Record: May 25, 2025)

• Mountain Name: Hirugano Highlands (Takasu, Gujo City, Gifu Prefecture)

• Group, loop, approx. 3 hours starting from in front of the Wetland Botanical Garden

• Weather: Sunny

• Weather: Cloudy

• Water: 0.6L carried → 0.3L consumed

• Trail snacks: None

• Vegetation: Wilderness, cool-temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest

(First published May 25, 2025. Revised and reposted May 27, 2026)

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