In Shukugawa Park (officially Shukugawa Kasenjiki Ryokuchi), next to Shukugawa Public Hall, there is a statue like this.
It has been there since I was a child. Back then, I used to climb on it and play around by patting the statue’s head, but if you look closely, you’ll see a poem carved into it.
Here it is↓
This is “Osanai Hi” (“Childhood Days”), a poem by Shukichi Yagi, a poet who was mainly active during the Taisho era and died in 1927 at the young age of 29.
Maybe you, too, could hear the voices of water and trees when you were a child?
There was also a stone monument with an explanation next to the statue.
It’s a little hard to read, but it says:
Statue of Childhood Days (from a poem by Shukichi Yagi)
“Wishing for children’s happiness”
Shukichi Yagi did spend some time in Kansai, but his direct connection to Nishinomiya is unclear.
The people who created and donated this statue probably wanted to pass the message of this poem on to future generations.
When I was a child, all I thought was, “That statue is kind of creepy…” But once you understand its meaning, the way you see it starts to change.
It’s a strange thing.
