The Hope of Glory, Catholic England, Dayspring: Poetic Selections from J. Matthew Boyleston

For the Means of Grace and for the Hope of Glory

With the tuft of his hind hoof,
the wild colt lunges
for the long felt of his wet nose—

an impossible maneuver,
one act of feckless grace,
the taste of mulchy horse on my tongue.

Catholic England

Neither Roundhead nor Cavalier, we hold
each other like strangers lost at sea.
Cromwell burned us from the earth and we told

our children the straw and wire effigy,
that heath on fire, was not us; nor the virgin
Queen’s adiaphora and liturgy;

that we could live here in persecution
without a voice, a face, without a name.
We crowd in spaces we cannot stand in.

Beneath the floorboards of a northern home
we’ve carved a warm receptacle for prayer,
lit candles, called together, fully formed,

a child, immaculate and muscular,
waxed strong and ready from this round center.

O Come Thou Dayspring

Although our face blindness has grown acute,
Despite the scar tissue enwebbing knees,
Vain vice, vain rehab, vain heresy,
Even through the fall out of our own deep thought,
New track marks pocked into a mother’s arm,
Turn again to us.

O Come O Come

Although our days are measured by explanations,
Do nothing. Do something.
Vow to never try again.
Even blind, one can sense the absence of light.
Now teach us to see the light within the light,
The color within the whiteness.

Emmanuel

A God with us.
Doves descending to our seeded fields,
Veneration, venison, the hunter stalking off into unowned land,
Every hidden sin is a doe suckling young.
In the garden of Eden, Adam cleans his gun.
Though we look for the graveyard in the garden.

Come

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