Reprising A Shimmer of Something

Today I am reprising Brian Doyle’s Shimmer of Something. It too is saving me as it has before especially the line: “We touch each other when we have no other way to speak.” Since COVID and the intensifying awareness and importance of Black Lives Matter, physical touch has become a precious topic. I am wondering how we touch each other differently. Perhaps with gestures of grace and authentic care. Today I

bow to the invisible love which permeates even in times of crisis and oppression. As I bow I pray, another connective act, that we continue to find and focus on ways of being “wise and wild” in our affections.

A Shimmer of Something

Well, the aged mother of the woman who married me died,

And there are so many stories both sad and hilarious to tell,

But let me tell you just one, because it is little and not little.

At her Mass, after the miracle, but before the electric bread

Went into every soul, as people are shuffling slowly toward

The altar, everyone in the line on the left side, as they came

To the front pew, touched my wife. Some bent down to hug

Her. Some touched her hair gently. Some just placed a hand

On her shoulder. One woman reached down and cupped her

Face in her hands for an instant. Sure I wept. We touch each

Other when we have no other way to speak. We speak many

Languages without words. We are so much wilder and wiser

Than we know. There are so very many of us without words,

Speaking the most amazing and eloquent languages; we sing

With our hands. I have seen it happen. You have seen it, too.

It's a little thing, but there's a shimmer of something beyond

Vast. See, I am trying to say an epic thing in this small poem,

And here we are at the end of the poem, where I stop talking.

Brian Doyle