[hyperborealis]

The opening sequence was fascinating. Arata recalls the magpie bridge from episode 23 of the first season, which connects Chihaya and himself, and thinks they are connected not simply by phone, but by something else. I wonder what he has in mind?

The title poem is #11. Here's Mostow's translation:

O tell her, at least,
that I've rowed out, heading towards
the innumerable isles
of the ocean's wide plain,
you fishing boats of the sea folk!

Mostow notes that the poem is a message to a lover, from a person returning from exile. This of course fits Arata's hopes to return to Tokyo from the isolation of Fukui.

#11 also appears in the OP, as the card Arata takes in his section of the practice sequence. It corresponds to the card Chihaya takes, which is #88. Here's Mostow again:

Due to that single night
of fitful sleep, short as a reed's joint cut at the root,
from Naniwa Bay,
am I to exhaust myself, like the channel-markers,
passing my days in longing?

The lover of Chihaya's poem lives in longing in the memory of a past tryst, just as Chihaya keeps in her heart the memory of playing karuta as children with Taichi and Arata. Arata's poem lets us know he has begun his journey back.