Today’s find: Brian Doyle

He made it look easy. But I can assure you that it is not.

‘It’…being proems (prose poems) that captured the imagination and stirred the heart and touched the soul—all within a well-confined space. A hunnert words. Hunnert-and-a-half, maybe.

Brian Doyle was a master at it. And now, he is gone. At the tender age of 60. Old enough to have seen a lot, loved a lot, hurt a lot, mulled a lot, apologized a lot, shared a lot.

You can find some of his stuff at First Things.

I note, with affection…and a tinge of sadness, that his 2014 collection A Shimmer of Something is among the most dog-eared books I own.

Check out this small sample—the volume’s title track, and the proem that follows immediately after it:

‘Witness is our great work.’

You got that right, Brian.

You got it right, too.

Requiescat in pace.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS