The Heronry: Poems

In an understated 11th collection from Jarman (Bone Fires), faith reveals its multiform and complex nature through the people the poet meets. “Faith is like fiberglass, a rag toughened by resin,” he writes, yet it is also like “water, a substance, stormy or pacific.” With precision and tenderness, Jarman explores the sinew and soul of humankind: “Mortality and laughter,/ the sad and funny fact that you will die/ and that you’ve made your children, they will die./ Do they hold that against you? Strangely, no.” In the book’s second section, “Believers, Unbelievers,” Jarman produces a series of graceful character portraits, including one of a woman whose church-elder husband confesses to adultery, and another of the neighborhood’s eccentric self-styled philosopher. The third and final section finds Jarman exploring specific moments in scripture and places in his past. “Tiel Burn” takes the name of a river in Scotland where Jarman spent formative childhood years and which he rediscovered on Google Earth. Jarman’s river becomes an analogue of the faith he explores: “I have to act as if I never knew it/ was always present, always passing through,/ on its way to the shifting place of change/ that turns from fresh to salt, and worlds divide,/ giving to the sea its gift—itself.” (Jan.)