Gaits by Paulette Dubé Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $17.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-74-4 I’m positively wild about Paulette Dubé’s new book. Walking through the numbered poems in Gaits was a meditative experience; they ferried me into the understory – with its seeds, scat, berries, pine needles, creatures, bird song, and autumn leaves (which “follow as brown tap shoes”) – and readers, there’s no place I’d rather be. There’s ample white space around the stanzas in the award-winning Jasper poet’s fifth collection, which fittingly allows both the pieces and their readers room to breathe. As the title suggests, the poems examine “gaits” – both animal and human – through the seasons. It’s an inspired idea, and one which required a hawk eye and owl ear-to-the-ground (and air). Although brief and deceptively simple, the finely-honed pieces are actually multi-layered: the masterly poet weaves descriptions of the natural world, mythology, contemporary life, and philosophy into a spider-fine lace of words. Look, for example, at how the following lines pull double duty: “a day of soft rain\melts a hard week of snow”. I highly agree with the poet’s assertion that “healing is\water over stones, wind over grass, sounds\of deer, fearless.” Like…