"Although the title of this book suggests sadness and shadows, it also raises awareness and hope. Here to convey the losses and changes of Tùkhòne area, Lockhart applies Japanese lyric forms with his ancestral moon movements and his lost dialect. We find ice, geese, medicines as well as church, bridge, bar and traffic; we hear tides, rail cars and gulls, we also sing loud and send prayers. Nature and the modern world encounter, collide and "dance" in Lockhart's lines and mind. Following his riverside city tours and reflections, we see the pain, the suffering and desire to find balance and peace. "We almost lost Detroit", we hear him "our being, is birthed here, rooted here, and left for creation to know we have not given up." We witness with him: "roots need to be pushed downward/against the wind", "Deeper black where/abandoned station rises. Way up,/windows burn to life." - Anna Yin author of Nightlights, inaugural Poet Laureate of Mississauga
"In this collection Lockhart has skillfully grafted the sensibility of the haiku onto the rootstock of his First Nation perspective. The result? - the separate vascular tissues have fused and grown into something new and densely rich." - George Swede