GERARD SARNAT

Nobel Valedictory

Researcher extraordinaire, colleagues
locked me in my laboratory

and threw away the key.
Different kind of pediatrician, misfit

as a clinician, I was evergreen, tiptop
while crippled twisted

kids and parents blew their shoots
over almost certain death. A pine tree

standing alone among deciduous woods,
he didn't lose his cones

confronting what had to be done
to land the cure for leukemia.

Gerard Sarnat is the author of two critically acclaimed poetry collections, 2010's HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man and 2012's Disputes. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in over seventy journals and anthologies. Harvard and Stanford educated, Gerry's a physician who's set up and staffed clinics for the disenfranchised, a CEO of health care organizations, and Stanford professor. For The Huffington Post review and more about Sarnat's work visit his website.