The tracks we leave

by Barbara Helfgott Hyett

These poems, beautiful in their simplicity and poignant in the nature of their subject matter, focus on North America creatures judged "endangered" by the U.S. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Ordered according to moments in the life cycle - birth, juvenile behavior, courtship, mating, feeding and hunting, aging, and death - the poems depict mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, molluscs, crustaceans, insects, and arachnids. Each is accompanied by an illustration of the animal in the wild, and all recreate what is essentially fleeting: the complex beauty of one of nature's creations. Interspersed among the poems are verse fragments depicting the human predicament in a landscape shared with vanishing species.