The Heronry. Mark Jarman
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Copyright © 2017 Mark Jarman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jarman, Mark, 1952- author.
Title: The heronry: poems / Mark Jarman.
Description: First edition. | Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016014118 (print) | LCCN 2016020095 (ebook) | ISBN 9781941411353 (softcover: acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781941411360
Subjects: | BISAC: NATURE / Ecology. | RELIGION / Spirituality. | BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Meditation.
Classification: LCC PS3560.A537 A6 2017 (print) | LCC PS3560.A537 (ebook) | DDC 811/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014118
Interior and exterior design by Kristen Radtke.
Manufactured in Canada.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Contents
3 Bat
8 Expected
11 The Heronry
Believers, Unbelievers
1 Reverend “Rev” Rebenek
2 Betsy Moore
3 Aunt Rolla
4 Passed On
5 Mr. Jackson
6 Meg Stanley
7 Brightlingen
8 That Teenager Who Prowled Old Books
9 The Northern Lights
10 In a Bookstore in Hay-on-Wye
11 Bad Girl Singing
12 George W. Bush
13 Wenlock Carston
14 Mickey Lucas
15 The Istanbul Album
Another Field
1 Dünya Ahiretin Tarlasıdır
2 Friends and Wolves
3 Rest on the Flight into Egypt
4 Walking on Water
5 Bulgarian Icon of The Last Supper
6 The Teachable Moment
7 Milagro
8 Two Islands Corsica Santorini
9 Boy with a Buttercup
10 Prosím
11 Mothering Sunday
12 Tiel Burn
13 Polska Street
Acknowledgments
Will the circle be unbroken?
Bo Dee Jarman (1930–2012)
The Heronry
Ruby Throated Moses
When my eye caught the green surprise
of a hummingbird inside the dim garage,
like a brooch pinned against the sheetrock wall,
I canted open the creaking garage door
and tossed him back to blinding summer life.
He spiraled into brilliance, out of sight.
When Michelangelo struck Moses’ knee
and shouted at him, “Speak!,” the chisel made
a dent. But Moses kept his glaring silence.
And yet, through the statue’s marble hair, a wildness
stuck out two ridged horns and spoke.
“Let this be light,” it said. “Let this be light.”
Cul-de-Sac Idyll
The flycatcher feeds its young a lightning bug, frantically blinking.
The trees forget the hurricane as they stand still for days.
The defibrillator sleeps in a lump under our neighbor’s shirt pocket.
The flycatcher snagging its prey squirms like a trout in midair.
The dogwoods this spring blew all their savings on taffeta.
The cardiac muscle fibers shudder like untimed pistons.