*Echoes for the Eye: Poems to Celebrate Patterns in Nature by Barbara Juster Esbensen (1996) is a clever title for this unusual book. A note from the author and illustrator at the beginning of the book explains. “A kind of natural geometry and a repetition of shapes exist in unexpected places in the world around us...We have both spent most of our lives noticing, learning about, and marveling at these patterns in the natural world, and in the universe that holds our planet Earth.” There are four sections of poems: spirals, branches, polygons, meanders/circles. Ferns and hurricanes are examples of spirals; trees and lightning have examples of branches; a bee hive and turtle shell are examples of polygons; a snake and river are examples of meanders. “Pouring over rocks, braiding and unbraiding pushing against each bank flattening itself into satin curves the shining river cuts its snake-way across the flowered land.” Ripples in water and the rings within the trunk of a tree exemplify circles. Helen K. Davie’s illustrations feature the geometry without distortion. The pictures are lovely.
