"These humans, who chase after the stars, are called poets."

Mark Scheel's Star Chaser is "a creative burst exploring the relationships among ancient legend, the life cycle, the autobiographical and modern day angst." Divided into three sections: "Yesterday," "Today" and "Tomorrow," this division signifies the reality all of us must confront living our lives. In the first section, the poem "Merging" might be seen as symbolizing conception as well as foreshadowing both young adulthood and growth.

In the second section, "Today," we begin to see the initiation of another phase of life and a shifting of the zeitgeist. In the first poem, "Prairie Idyl," Scheel briefly alludes to the passing of his youth, the slow deterioration of rural America and the ultimate loss of his mother and a link to his own mortality. In the poem "This New Dawning," we begin to see a grim acceptance and a fear of the future after the shock of the events of 9/11. Another poem, "Coming Home from Iraq," is more stark and bleak as it envisions the implications of war, "the cold, polished marble of death." However, as all of us are coming to know, the world today is fraught with peril.

The third section, "Tomorrow," presents us with both a perspective of looking back and looking ahead. Such bogeymen as retirement, aging, disease, terrorists and the great abyss of death all raise their frightening heads, yet there's also a counterbalance of hope for lasting love and internal peace.

Such is the scope and beauty of Star Chaser. While Mr. Scheel may still deem himself poetically a "star chaser," it is clear that, like the Northern Lights themselves, he has illuminated our horizon with a book of poetry that transcends the emotionally empty and hollow halls of academe and reaches out, longingly and lovingly, to grasp and finally catch those faraway stars. -Glen Enloe, author of When Cowboys Rode Away.