In her third collection of poems, Sue Wheeler writes of the ephemeral with an eye trained on the eternal questions. “Who are you?” she asks at the outset of her search for fresh and more telling names for the human in the lush natural landscape of her West Coast island home. The answers she gives us are always surprising.

Understory

To walk out of the field guide
and listen. To wait
for the world to approach with its dapple and hands.
Who are you?
Dreamer On A Short String.
Big Boots Clomping Through The Underbrush.
There’s an understory here, shades
of meaning, tale told by a rock
signifying everything.

To open the grammar of being seen
and let the creatures name you.
Lover Who Begins To Notice.
Figure Of Speech.

Wheeler names for us this place she knows intimately, where, despite its natural wealth, human sorrows grow as abundantly as the rich flora of the forest understory. She takes us down and into the riches of the moment, until the green on green of resplendent existence becomes an extension of our most essential selves.