Gerard Sarnat is a physician who’s built and staffed homeless clinics as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. He has been nominated for Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards and is widely published in academic journals, including those by Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Johns Hopkins, and Wesleyan. His work has also appeared in Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, Margie, Blue Mountain Review, Danse Macabre, Canary Eco, Military Experience and the Arts, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. His piece KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY was selected for pamphlet distribution nationwide on Inauguration Day 2016. His poem Amber Of Memory was chosen for his 50th Harvard reunion Dylan symposium. He’s also authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), and Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry’s been married since 1969, with three kids plus four grandkids (and more on the way).
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA 1. OCEANS OF WHEAT is part of a larger in-progress work.
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA
1. OCEANS OF WHEAT
i. Freedom Bucket Brigade, or, Before Ellis Island My Name Was Gesundheit
Sarnatzky.
– RIP Frank L White, 1867-1938
Board-certified carnivore whose shuck ‘n jive flunked out of locavore vegan school,
laid up in bed day two after hip replacement,
I pleaded with my wife to prepare this invalid physician some Cream of Wheat.
Not fashionable Bob’s Red Mill Organic or new-fangled One Minute or Instant,
but original good old seminola
you must stir on the stovetop forever. The kind with the Uncle Tom
white hatted plus monikered chef whose inviting welcoming face greeted
breakfasting Americans for a century before
the Great Chicago Deluge of 1992. Which is almost exactly
forty-six years after Gerard Sarnat’s conceived on the Windy City’s Southside,
fifty-four years since a Barbados-born son of slaves,
suddenly become primo box cover model material, was buried there in
segregated
Woodlawn Cemetery. It’s not far from where Mommy spoon-fed moi farina
that like now had a dollop of butter in the center.
It still melts me–as embarrassingly so do Mr. White’s ivories and sunny grin.
ii. Life Savers
Both urchins
peel off ring
after ring of
hard candy
from rolls
such iconic
foil wrapper
–he trades
watermelon
for her cherry
sucking one
after another
to take edge
off hunger as
each hardy soul
waits on Mom
to bring food
back to home
in residential
hotel next to
vacant church
borders dump
or county jail
–only real
utensil for
cooking is
a hotplate
chained to
chair bottom.
Mommy’s
hunting’s
done just
after dark
when she’s
scarfed up
an opened
box from
dumpster
-diving
behind
some diner
6 blocks
past last
subway
stop–
it was
not easy
because
3 other
mothers
competed.
While
daughter
boiled
water,
younger
son was
nursed
before
perhaps
a cup of
cereal
[maybe
infested]
is added
to the vat
for 7 or 8
minutes
which’s
enough
to make
today’s
1 st meal.
During good
times living
with friend
[who does
too many
‘shrooms]
in borrowed
room, should
our family
be able to
scrounge
together
~$4.49
Shoprite’s
proprietor
gives them
expired milk
and spoiled
fruit as well
as a pristine
Cream of
Wheat box
that has 24
servings per
container
plus plenty
of vitamins/
hot calories
so they can
get through
winter nights.
You can read Gerry’s previous piece, Been Down So Long Looks Like Up To Me, here. More of his work is accessible via GerardSarnat.com.