Gerard Sarnat

Ice forest spirits

mate first spring sunrise,
build dumb decoy nests
 
that never trick warm
blooded new-fangled 
mammal scavengers.
 
One hundred fifty
million years more braun
than brain can’t adapt.
 
Acid rain pollutes egg 
shell mutants to break.
Their world suffocates.
 
TRex stench stretches 
beyond lava floe 
sulphur miasmas.
 
Lowland swamps give way
to wilderness ash.
Baked Triceratops 
 
drive toward extinction, 
into a brilliant 
volcanic sunset,
 
colossal corpses
oblivious to
their collision course,
 
shooting star shock waves,
meteor showers
that spell doom, 
 
the blast of billions
of Hiroshimas
indifferent to
 
some bickering chicks
cannibalizing.
Light fades to silence.



Gerard Sarnat is a widely published poet who most recently has been nominated for the pending 2022 Science Fiction Poetry Association Dwarf Star Award, and has been nominated for handfuls of 2021 and previous Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles, Disputes, 17s, and Melting the Ice King. Gerry is a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy and resources to deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons, and is looking forward to potential future granddaughters.  His website is gerardsarnat.com.