Susan Eisenberg
Who Eats Leaves from a Tree?
Butterflies, caterpillars, and moths.
Deer, moose, and sheep. Giraffes, camels,
black rhinos. Koalas favor eucalyptus
while elephants prefer sugar maple and willow.
Tastiest to elk: bitter bush.
Goats find leaves sweetest in fall.
Cattle will if they must. Likewise
people starved under siege.
Leaves of the mulberry
can be cooked with rice
when rice can be found.
Talking with their open mouths full
sharpshooters who blockade food
mock the human animals on TikTok.
“I grew up in Cleveland, where my family belonged to a reform temple. My preparation for confirmation—against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and prelude to the Vietnam War—was a year-long seminar in Ethics. As I follow the intense news from Gaza and the West Bank, I evoke those principles. We had a mulberry tree in our backyard in Ohio, so the leaf detail snagged my attention and drew me into writing ‘Who Eats Leaves from a Tree?’, one in a series of linked poems.” —Susan Eisenberg
Susan Eisenberg is a poet, visual artist, oral historian, and among the first women in the US to become a licensed union construction electrician. She’s author of five poetry collections, most recently Stanley’s Girl (Cornell). Recipient of Virginia Quarterly Review’s Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry and the Labor Heritage Foundation’s Joe Hill Award, she is Poetry Editor of the journal Labor (Duke). Her virtual installation about women in construction can be viewed at https://onequalter.ms. Her website is http://susaneisenberg.com. She lives in Boston.
