To Whom Winter Comes Faster? (10) —The Tenth of 10 Chinese Poems on the Poor composed in the winter of 886 by Sugawara Michizane, the then Sanuki Province Governor—

To whom winter comes faster? To a woodman winter comes faster He can’t tell when to retire And always carries heavy lumber Clouds and rocks he heads bitterly And returns to a poor hut with a small window Beaten down, he can hardly support his family His wife and children often starve and fall sick