Season word · meigetsu to susuki · September · autumn
Harvest moon and susuki 名月と芒
Tsukimi, moon-viewing, falls on the fifteenth night of the eighth lunar month — in 2026 that is 25 September. People set out a few stalks of susuki, Japanese silver grass, beside round rice dumplings and watch the moon rise. The two belong together: susuki plumes open on hillsides and riverbanks in September and catch the low autumn light, and the grass is one of the seven grasses of autumn named in the oldest poetry. In a haiku the word "moon" on its own already means an autumn moon; every other moon needs a qualifier.
Where to meet it
Moon-viewing evenings at temples and gardens — the pond at Daikaku-ji in Kyoto holds the famous one. For the grass itself, the Sengokuhara field in Hakone: silver in late September, gold by November.
