Takasaki Park(yamagoe, Matsuyama)

"It is a long day
the winding road (seven curves) is running parallel to
the farm of rape blossoms"
(Shiki)

This Haiku is the one of the six Haiku that Shiki sended to Hekigotou Kawahigashi as the part of March in "Twelve Months of famous place in Matsuyama" in 17th June of 1892(Meiji 25).
It appeared Shiki's Haiku poetry "Kanzan Rakuboku" volume 1(Spring of 1892). When Yoshiakira Katoh built the Castle Town, he bended strategically the old Imabari Highway at around the Himebara and Kamogawa on purpose.
This road was called "the seven curves". Nowadays, it has barely retained the vestiges of the old highway along the national road between Himebara and Uchimiya. Longing for the word of "the seven curves", this Haiku monument was built.
The first syllable of five, seven and five in this Haiku expressed in Japanese "Nagakihiya Natanetsutaino Nanamagari" made this Haiku rhythmical.
There is a Haiku
"The rape blossoms are in bloom the walkers call each other on the seven curves"
that composed by Shiki too, in the following year of 1893 (Meiji 26).
The enlargement of Shiki's own hand writing.
This monument was built to celebrae the completion of the undertaking of the wide area urban planning and the replanning of street of Johoku district.