"Sukkot Begins Tonight" by Gerard Sarnat

Sukkot* Begins Tonight

—thanks to Rabbi Zac
for forwarding wisdom
R'  Meshulam Feivush
Rebbe of Zbarazh in
Yosher Divrey Emet

Embrace is hinted
at in the sukkah:
Just as a parent
embraces child
in love
        encircling
& sheltering, so
does our sukkah
for Gerardo's fam
+ friends're invited
regardless
                of religion.

*Sukkot is an annual Jewish festival, also called the Feast of Tabernacles, that commemorates two main events:  the 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt and the fall harvest. Celebrated for seven days in the autumn, it involves building and dwelling in a temporary hut called a sukkah.

~

Eighty-year-old late-phase often graphic chronicler arrived in seventh decade, aphorist, humorist or sometimes meanderist, Gerard Sarnat (he/they) is a multiple Pushcart/Best of the Net Award nominee who also has been invited to serve as judge for competitions. Activism Through Poetry: How Gerard Sarnat Uses Verse as a Form of Protest is a 2025 retrospective: https://culterateblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/activism-through-poetry-how-gerard-sarnat-uses-verse-as-a-form-of-protest/. His words have been widely published in four collections by Rattle, Songs of Eretz, London Arts-Based Research Centre, Israel Association of Writers in English, The Nature of Our Times/Poets for Science, Gravity of the Thing, Third Wednesday, Poetry Center of San Jose, Brooklyn Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, Deronda Review, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, New York Times, Mount Saint Mary's LA/Saint Benedict/Saint John's Universities, Oberlin, Slippery Rock, St. John's University, Northwestern, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Missouri Baptist, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Grinnell, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Brown, North Dakota, CUNY, McMaster, Maine, Oklahoma/British Columbia/Toronto/Chicago/Virginia/Alabama university presses—and more. He's a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physician, Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently, he's devoting energy and resources to dealing with climate justice, serving on Climate Action Now's board. Sarnat's belonged to the longest-running U.S. Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group. Gerry's been married since 1969 and has three kids, seven grandsons—and looks forward to future granddaughters. gerardsarnat.com