Gerard Sarnat
Walrus Stillness
R.I.P. Augustus Owsley Stanley, 1935 – 2011
Dog days of August for shamans, egg man’s tusks on a leash, sturdy
flippers maintain resilient spacing between balsa double wings,
clip seven featherweight pieces together in four easy steps.
Bifocals slipped off, slipping inside, winter sun fuels spread-eagle
biplaning as all meaning’s shuttered while entheogens rewrite
the wood’s mind. Waking to propeller blades gusting perfect dihedrals,
it takes a sec to remind me like I try with my goddaughter
that small objects up close & large ones far away look the same.
I’d never noticed how hummingbirds perturb the air,
how sycamores breath, how grass & rocks & the breeze conspire.
“See? I am it as you are she as we flyometrically jet Magritte.”
Lucy’s eyelashes sparkle on rainbow clouds wafting cotton-candy figurines.
A tight oval hovers silent & high in the diamond half sky.
Unerring sense of currents, the redtail swoops to his staging area, claws
loose shale overhanging our shanty, krees, eee-ar kree-eee-ar guh-runk!.
Carryout carrion pigs in the heavens, we don falconer goggles to gawk
at fireflies while owlet guides owl through the hoot of a vanishing dream.
Gerard Sarnat MD received his education at Harvard and Stanford. He established and staffed clinics for the disenfranchised, has been a CEO of healthcare organizations, and was a Stanford professor.
Gerry is the author of three critically acclaimed collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man (2010), Disputes (2012), and 17s (2014) in which each poem, stanza or line has 17 syllables. For Huffington Post reviews, reading dates including Stanford, publications and more, visit GerardSarnat.com. His books are available at select bookstores and on Amazon.
Gerard has been featured this year as Songs of Eretz Poetry Review’s Poet of the Week with one of his poems appearing daily. Dr. Sarnat is the second poet ever to be so honored.