shashasha

Excluded from the human diet and useless for clothing or shelter, the undergrowth thrives and engulfs human existence. It transforms under the snow, rain, wind and sunlight.

Children play Tarzan in the undergrowth or mountain thickets. When the harvest moon appears, they go out to pick the pampass grass.

I pushed my way through the swirling sea of grass. The darkness beneath the thick ivy soothed me. Whenever my parents scolded me, whenever I felt a sense of failure, I would think "Ah, I'm all alone," and go there to hide. It was such a scary place. One day, the smell of chestnuts in the bush told me that I had grown up.

Before humans and their food, clothing and shelter, there was the undergrowth.

-Shoko Hashimoto, Afterword Undergrowth.