The book is a collection of poems written as if by Thoreau illustrating in story poems segments of Thoreau's life: known and unknown. Robert Chute, as a scientific-poet, shares with us his interest in and admiration of the writings of Henry David Thoreau.

Robert M. Chute, a native of Naples, Maine, was educated, according to Chute, with varying degrees of success, at Fryeburg Academy, the University of Maine, and Johns Hopkins University. He served in the U.S. Air Force in WWII. In 1962 at Bates College he was Chairman of the Biology Department. Wearing his scientific hat, he wrote Introduction to Biology and Environmental Insight both published by Harper and Row. During the 1960s he produced and edited a mimeograph poetry magazine, The Small Pond. Research in and Professing of Biology supported his poetry habit until retirement from Bates College in 1993. He received the Rhine Humanities Council chapbook award for Samuel Sewall Sails for Home and the Beloit Poetry Journal's Chad Walsh Award for the poem, "Heat Wave in Concord." Chute was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. During the Vietnam War, he ran as an independent protest candidate for the U. S. House and continues as an active supporter of Veterans for Peace.