The sunshine reaches far into my house these days. Because Tuesday was the winter solstice, it passed through the narrow rooms and lighted the recess of the normally dim hallway.

Fusei Tomiyasu composed a haiku poem on the winter solstice: ``The sunshine of the winter solstice/ Is really friendly to me/ It warms my knees folded on the floor.''

I stepped outside. The feeble sun of the winter solstice was shining brightly nevertheless. When I stopped and looked back, I saw I was casting a long, black shadow on the flagstones of the sidewalk. Approximately three times as long as my height, the shadow obliterated my age and nationality.

I recalled a novel about a man who lost his shadow, the work of Albert von Chamisso, a German of French descent. (A Japanese translation has been published as an Iwanami Library paperback.)

The protagonist becomes a millionaire by selling off his shadow. As the price for his shadow, he obtains a ``gold bag,'' which provides an inexhaustible supply of gold coins. But people treat the shadowless man coldly. It is both amusing and pathetic to see him agonize and suffer as he gets on with his life.

It just occurred to me that in reality, December would be the worst time of year for such a man because shadows become most pronounced during the month.

When I stepped outside again in the afternoon, the sun was hidden behind lead-gray clouds. Everyone was busy with their work or doing shopping, none worrying about the absence of a shadow. Sometimes, a gusty wintry wind rose, causing golden leaves to swirl at the base of a thick ginkgo tree.

Let me quote another poem on the winter solstice: ``Chatting loudly/ They came out of the mountain/ Under the feeble sun of the winter solstice.'' This poem was composed by Murio Suzuki, who died this month.

During World War II, Suzuki served as a soldier in China and the Philippines. He wrote insightful poems about soldiers on the battlefield.

A typical work of this category goes: ``An article left behind by the dead soldier/ An Iwanami Library copy of `Abe Ichizoku' (The Abe family).'' (In this historical novel, Mori Ogai, one of the literary giants of modern Japan, details the cruel and unreasonable samurai code that was observed in the feudal times.)

Before the war, he would send poems to Kyodai (Kyoto University) Haiku magazine in hopes of getting them printed in the flagship journal of poets who had done away with kigo (season words). Then, he studied haiku under Sanki Saito, who is known for this unique poem: ``Water sloshes inside the water pillow/ A chilly sea is in there.''

The sun of the winter solstice sank before 5 p.m. I opened a collection of Saito's poems, selected by Suzuki and published as part of The Asahi Shimbun paperback series. I found a poem that was probably composed about this time of year: ``When the morning sun comes out/ The bonfire glows more/ And the shadows of those around it lengthen.''

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 22(IHT/Asahi: December 23,2004)