The Children

By Mark Jarman b. 1952 Mark Jarman

The children are hiding among the raspberry canes.

They look big to one another, the garden small.

Already in their mouths this soft fruit

That lasts so briefly in the supermarket

Tastes like the past. The gritty wall,

Behind the veil of leaves, is hollow.

There are yellow wasps inside it. The children know.

They know the wall is hard, although it hums.

They know a lot and will not forget it soon.

When did we forget? But we were never

Children, never found where they were hiding

And hid with them, never followed

The wasp down into its nest

With a fingertip that still tingles.

We lie in bed at night, thinking about

The future, always the future, always forgetting

That it will be the past, hard and hollow,

Veiled and humming, soon enough.

Source: The Black Riviera (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)

Biography

Considered a key figure in both New Narrative and New Formalism, Mark Jarman has exerted a significant influence on contemporary American poetry. In the 1980s, with Robert McDowell, Jarman founded and edited the Reaper, a magazine devoted to reclaiming and promoting poetry that emphasized story and image. Controversially warning "Navel gazers and mannerists” that “their time is running out,” the magazine sought to reestablish . . .

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