If this question is in reference to Saiba's death poem

Meigetsu no hoo e korobasu makura kana

I shift my pillow
closer to the
full moon.

--tr. Hoffman

then we are talking about a slightly different time of year than
right now (August).

The August, 2006 full moon comes on August ninth (by the calendar I
am using).

But when Hoffman, in "Japanese Death Poems," says that Saiba "died on
the fifteenth day of the eight month," he means what we would take to
be September. Hoffman goes on to say, "Saiba died on the day of the
full autumn moon. The poet no doubt refers to the act of moving his
bed closer to the window through which the moon is shining."

By the old Japanese lunar calendar, the full moon was always on the
fifteenth of the month; and the eighth month would be our September.
Just as a brief aside here, according to things I've read over the
years, although the Japanese, from a Buddhist standpoint, like the
full moon, from an aesthetic standpoint they also like the moons of
the thirteenth and the seventeenth as well, because these moons were
slightly misshapen from total fullness.

According to what I've read, autumn in Japan by the old lunar
calendar consisted of the seventh, eighth, and ninth months (our
August, September, and October). The most significant full moon of
the lunar year was the full moon of the eight month (September), the
Harvest Moon.

Here is a link to a nice discussion of this.

http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/calendar/september/moon.html

--Larry

--- In translatinghaiku@yahoogroups.com, "simple_sigh_man"
<dennis443@...> wrote:
>
> Is there some significance to this time of year?
>
> It is considered auspicious?
>
> ~SSM~
>