A Worn Chest is a treasure chest of tanka to be opened and read slowly and
savoured.

Joy McCall and Tom Clausen write with grace about the complexities of life,
about love and loss, joy and sorrowing, yet their poetry is always attuned
to the subtle beauty all around us. Each small poem holds a deep and
compassionate connection to the natural world.

Lynda Monahan
author of A Slow Dance in the Flames, What My Body Knows, Verge and A
Beautiful Stone

The natural world in many landscapes, seasons, and guises illuminates these tanka pairs. Clausen and McCall beautifully respond to one another's prompting verses, often changing place as they lead us deeper and deeper into the oneness that holds all of life in a sacred circle. We meet deer spirit and coyote, mortar bees and ladybugs. We hear reservoir ice crack while a man hums in tandem on the shore, read messages and shapes in the clouds, and rest at the heart of a field of silent prayers. Yes, there is loss and danger, both in the human and animal world, but in these call-and- response tanka, we are reminded that we are part of the woods, the wind, even the galaxies in Queen Anne's Lace. This seamless collection offers us healing and solace as it welcomes us home.

Penny Harter, author of Still-Water Days

One native American chief is quoted as saying

"The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites one family.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it."

As you read through these tanka by Tom and Joy you can almost taste the truthfulness of those words.

The deer, the mice, the birds, the clouds and waving grasses all need each other to live and thrive.

We are all strands in this web beautifully tied together in the words and essence of these verses.

Sit back, read and enjoy the connectedness of all things.

Steve Wilkinson
Editor of The Bamboo Hut and Take 5ive journals