In AN OKAPI’S ODE TO TRACK AND FIELD, an okapi recites an ode. But it’s not just any old ode. Far from it. It’s an ode that’ll help you make head or tails of a sport that lots of people like to watch but don’t know much about. How many kinds of jumps are there? What’s a hammer? What are the differences between a decathlon and a heptathlon? Who can answer such questions? Few can. But fear not! Here’s the good news: being no run of the mill rhyme-writing ruminant, the okapi, in a poem that’s hard to topi, does all of us a favor by putting the sport of track and field in one whale of a nifty nutshell. It’s quite a feat. But will the okapi’s ode cross the finish line in first place? Well, you’ll just have to be the judge of that!