But for some business transactions posted on clay tablets in Mesopotamia, poetry is older than prose. Its ancientness signals an archaic mode of thought—something still a part of us lying deep within, something which, because of who we are, means that some things cannot be said in any way except through poems… There the timeless moment frozen in time can be expurgated from the self, expressed to others, and examined by those looking to see if any fellow travelers have thought, felt, experienced the same things that they have. There are places where fall colors are "twenty shades of dull", and so the traveler must "choose to/Notice the multiple shades of earth." So Charlie Starr counsels in "Autumn toward Austin", and for the reader of this eclectic mix of poems, "[the] reward is a lesson in subtlety." Through shades comical, cosmic, squeamish, and whimsical, Starr takes us on a "journey…with tiny islands of destination along the way." -Ryan Apple, author of Stars and Sparrows Alike