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6-SHAKU(1-SHAKU IS ABOUT O.033 SQUARE
METERS) SICK BED, SHIKI MASAOKA

  If I could stand up, I would eat snow on Mt.Everest in the
Himalayas in North India. 
  This is one of eight series of poems with the phrase [If I
could stand up].
  There are other pieces he composed as the inspiration hit 
him. For instance, I'd like to bath hot spring of Hakone, I'
d like to float a ship on a lake at moony night, etc.. It is
interesting that there are compatibly exist poems of 
traditional haiku and ones reflecting the thrust of the 
period Meiji when Japan opened the door to world.
  The poet Shiki Matsuoka went to battlefield as journalist
durring Japan-China War(Nisshin War). On his coming back to
Japan, he bled largely on the ship.
  Afterwards his condition of caries worsened from belly, 
waist to hip and he was kept at a sick bed. As his disease 
was developing, needed medical treatment, we should call it
sickness rather than disability. But we might classify him 
one of disabled persons because he lived disabled daily life
, not able to walk for a long time.
  Confined in sick bed of 6-shaku, he took pen facing to 
ceiling of room to infuse new trend in the traditional 
Japanese literature by accomplishing great works as 
Renovation of haiku poems and then Renovation of tanka poems
.

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