Frog Creek Road

Norma Wilson's poetry draws us into the wonder of nature, whether its the startling appearance of an unexpected animal or the worked-for observation of animals oblivious to human presence. Trees, flowers, sky, water wrap us in their presence. Her home, where she and her husband have worked to restore the native ecosystem, becomes the center of a new world drawing us into possibilities and leaving us stunned by reality. As David Allan Evans remarks in the introduction: "Though the natural world gets most of the attention in these poems, it's not the only subject. In 'Walking at Dusk, ' the speaker 'finds herself in love/with Autumn's colors, ' yet when she returns home she sees 'on TV/ a world of people divided and maimed./Tyrants, bloated with all they can consume, / children starving, hiding and forced/ to flee, parents and children grieving . . . and seasons out of sync.' And she concludes that she 'must not be silent, must reach out, /and march with others for the right/of all human beings to walk in peace.'"