A Favorite Tanka

how many people
can you connect to
and lose in a life,
without feeling
quite lost

~ Tom Clausen

Traditionally, waka and tanka were expressions of romantic feeling. The wave of romantic poetry in the West ebbed with the onslaught of World War II. But the tanka remains primarily a vehicle of feeling. For me, this tanka by Tom Clausen (from Hummingbird, Vol. XII, No. 1, September 2001) is an eloquent testimony to the "quite lost" feelings of the aging. How richly blessed we have felt in our "connections," and how deprived and impoverished with each one's passing out of our life. A fine example of tanka words that both reach the heart and are good for the spirit.

~ H. H. Noyes (Greece)

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