The poems of Mutual Shores are delivered by one voice, but that voice has the tenor of many. Sterling is a poet straightforward in language and tone yet charmingly deceitful in subject––he draws an idea from the natural world then nurtures it, watches it grow. What results is a furthering of the human experience, a relativity that makes random the Chain of Being and leaves us where ‘the rain evokes / no patron saint’ and only a small green lizard / offers hope.’ Sterling, from him singular vantage point somewhere between the ground and the sky, says to us all This is what you should have seen.