—thanks to Elizabeth Kolbert,
“Reading a Plant’s Mind,”
NY Review Books, Oct24
We are a top-down species
where Gerry + your brains
organize well as regulate
their other organs with
institutions replicating
hierarchical structure
but flora by contrast
appear to be masters
of cooperative alliances
with a more diffuse body
plan: root or leaf damaged
another might take up slack.
If one then chooses to agree
that the non-fauna can seem
sentient, should I eat ‘em?
—
Prize-winning poet Gerard Sarnat is also a physician, Stanford University professor, and healthcare CEO. His literary work has been published by The Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Hamilton-Stone Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times, as well as by many academic presses. Read more about him at gerardsarnat.com.
