Open Eye

Tan'renga for the Microseasons

The healing power of art is a mystery.

a collection of natural objects found at the center of the labyrinth at St. Francis Springs Prayer Center

Dear One,

Have you ever felt yourself sinking into a kind of invisible quicksand? Maybe it happened slowly—millimeter by millimeter—over a very long time.

Maybe it was imperceptible. Painless. Until suddenly, you noticed that you were knee-deep . . .waist-deep . . .chest-deep . . . as I have recently been. I know so many of us have felt this collective weight of a deep sorrow coming upon us.

Sometimes we need professional help—a beautiful and life-giving solution—to help us climb out. And sometimes, if we catch ourselves sinking early enough, we might be able to hear a single voice in all the noise—singing a particular song in a particular way—or reading a certain combination of honest words that may be like a hand reaching out, putting us back on more solid ground.

Seems to me, it’s like a match that lights a single candle. This tiny spark has the power to throw-off a disproportional brightness in a dark chasm. We don’t always know in advance where the light will come from. But when we receive it, it brings an overwhelming urge to pass it on.

Art can be an act of service.

One such light-bringer for me is the poet Dick Whyte .

Many of you know him for his distinctively gorgeous and touching work at Forgotten Poets where he curates pre-1930’s era poetry. In his newsletter, Dick features one poet at a time, offering up a few of their works, a short biographical sketch, and an original poem of his own as an ongoing conversation across time.

A quieter side of Dick’s work can be found in his decades-long study of Japanese poetic forms—especially Haikai and Haiku. He is a wonderfully patient teacher who loves to share the fun of co-writing a poem with his readers tan’renga style!

Tan’renga is a type of linked verse, where each poet writes one part of the whole. The first poet sets up a scene, and the second poet responds with something that suggests a connection. The main technique is to link and shift the focus in an implicit way.

This feels quite different from the western tendency to want to explain or expand on the previous lines. Tan’renga asks us to be humble and wide awake. To exercise restraint. To employ an economy of words. When I say: Help me, Dick I am greedy! I want so many words! He is generous to offer suggestions—a thing most rare these days—which I appreciate very much.

An example of a tan’renga is a three-line hokku followed by a two-line capping verse.

Recently, on my silent retreat, I spent some time copying down all the tan’renga poems I had made into a small, beautiful notebook. Not because I thought my poems were any good, but because I saw them getting less bad. It’s so nice to see incremental progress over time.

As the lines slowly accrete, eventually, we might have something lovely and worth keeping. Here’s one I made in digital form to share with you. Dick translated Yayū’s hokku and I wrote a wakiku capping verse. This one reminds me of a night in springtime when the first moth appears . . .

You’ll notice the seasonal references. Here’s a fun one for early summertime when sudden storms roll in . . .

Looking down we hear abundant insect music—looking up we see the night sky . . .

As you may notice, these tiny poems dovetail perfectly with the microseasons of the natural year, and I find immense joy (and challenge!) in trying to write one.

I invite you to try it, too—go visit Dick Whyte on Bluesky!

Enjoy the gift of beautiful words and the kindness of those who love to share them. Thank you, dear Dick, for all that you do, and for the person you are.

Friends, I’ll see you in a new microseason,

xo Ann