Book of Winter Revelations, a Poem by Gerard Sarnat

While grokking cocky

High school graduates

Give Spring perorations

Reeking megalomania

Before got chances to

Prance/grab diploma…

During youthful days’

Feckless certain look

Deep inside my brain

Me myself and I had

An ongoing trialogue

(Perhaps you too are

Familiar?) the essence

Of which oy vey boiled

Down to, If THEY only

Followed Gerry’s path

All would be better off

Plus a lot more happy…

But now became very old

Not so small distortion

Field gave way to a new

Less reductionist quantum

Physics able to hold two

Varied truths at same time:

On one apposed thumb we

~ Dumb Homo sapiens are

Wired with universally similar

Drives plus values – yet each

Of us, by definition, must be

Diff’rent’s unique snowflakes.

….However this grandfather

Can take solace (maybe just

Bit deluded?) his own progeny

Already have crania screwed on

Straight to looser bobblehead

Humbler reality -- rather than

Patriarch’s uptight/naive childhood.

---

Gerard Sarnat’s a multiple Pushcart/Best of Net Award nominee. His work’s been widely published; including four collections; by Rattle, Brooklyn Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, New York Times, Oberlin, Northwestern, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Brown, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, British Columbia/Toronto/Chicago and Virginia university presses. He’s a Harvard Medical School-trained physician, Stanford professor, healthcare CEO. Currently, he’s devoting energy and resources to dealing with climate justice, serving on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s married since 1969, has three kids, seven grandsons — and looks forward to future granddaughters. gerardsarnat.com