Stall NotesJuly 10, 2026

Haikus From the Restroom

Seventeen seasonal haiku recovered from stall walls across four districts, arranged by the civic calendar and presented with their collection dates.

A quiet restroom stall drawn as a scholar's study in black-line engraving, faint verse just visible on the wall, a small transcription desk with a lamp standing outside the door.

Seventeen seasonal haiku were recovered from stall walls across four districts and arranged by the civic calendar. Four are transcribed below; sites are given by the survey's standing code.

Spring

the first warm morning the cistern refills slowly patience, then release

— Stall 3, District 2, collected 3 May

Summer

midsummer silence — the ceiling fan counts the hours nothing is hurried

— Stall 1, District 4, collected 2 August

Four small woodcut vignettes arranged in a grid: a blossoming branch, a folding fan, a falling leaf, and a snow-topped water tank. — Fig. 1 —The four seasons of the collection, in the order the walls gave them.

Autumn

a leaf at the vent the pipes tick as they cool down autumn in the stall

— Stall 5, District 1, collected 30 October

Winter

snow on the cistern the seat cold as a decree still, we are seated

— Stall 2, District 3, collected 14 January