Poets Salzer and Hyatt’s most recent collection of Tanka sequences is a meditative tribute to Mother Nature that uses the four seasons as a framework to evoke the sensation of rotating, of returning, of slowly spinning in a forest long enough to find stillness and observe that “time is but a vapour.” In Returning the seasons mark the cyclical nature of time rather than the chronological, and throughout the collection moments of presence, like “the unmapped journey of the red tulip,” lean against memories and “voices of ancestors,” illustrating the silent, mysterious timeline of the human experience and nature itself.

To read Returning is to experience an encounter with spiritual and natural alignment; there is a distinct calming effect and a slowing of the mind. Tanka is a five-lined haiku-like Japanese poetry form, and Hyatt and Salzer’s sequences, in which each contributes one poem, are brief yet rich in imagery and metaphor, like in Hyatt’s third Tanka from “Autumn”: “sensory walk // along an amaranthine path // quiet rain – // gradually our cadence // begins to match.” In this movement along the path, stillness is found, a sacred and wordless union with the natural world and all its paradoxes, like the presence of stillness while in motion, and that though everything changes, it also stays the same.

The poets draw on indigenous myth, history, and culture and the wisdom therein relating to humanity’s relationship to nature and the untenable grief at the loss of so many native languages and societies: “surrounded // by dark brown leaves // a single mushroom . . . // how I yearn to belong // to a tribe tonight.” In a world seemingly taken over by technology, Returning brings readers back to their roots and offers hope that no matter how the world is today, it is always turning forward and back around again.

Takeaway: A collaborative Tanka collection honoring nature and the healing cycle of time.

Great for fans of: Machi Tawara’s Salad Anniversary, Matsuo Basho’s Forest of Eyes: Selected Poetry of Tada Chimako.

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