Between 1177 and 1185, Kyoto suffered fire, whirlwind, famine, and earthquake during the late Heian crisis. Kamo no Chomei later described these disasters in Hojoki, a compact work of reflection on instability. The text links social breakdown with fragile dwellings, weather, hunger, and the temporary nature of human life.

Hojoki is prose, but it belongs to the same aesthetic world as waka and later haiku in its attention to impermanence, seasons, and humble shelter. It helped shape Japanese literary responses to environmental shock, turning disaster into a meditation on transience rather than mere chronicle.