The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be

Brian Doyle (1957-2017) was the longtime editor of the University of Portland's award-winning Portland Magazine. His essays appeared in Harper’s,The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. Catholic, First Things, Christian Century, America, and The American Scholar. He was the author of two Liturgical Press books, A Shimmer of Something: Lean Stories of Spiritual Substance and The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be: Prose Prayers and Cheerful Chants against the Dark as well as a contributor to Give Us This Day.

Contents
Acknowledgments   xv
That’s the Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be   1
Astigmata  2
Holy Thursday   4
Your Theatrical Training   6
Poem Celebrating the Tiny Metal Flag-Holding Widget
  In the Shadows on the Stage of the Lovely Old Wooden
  Lincoln Theater in Pastoral Mount Vernon, Washington   7
The Requisite Darkness   8
The Song Sparrow   10
Goofing the Angel   11
Poem for My Friend Louis   12
Sweeney’s   13
Seamus   14
At Marine Park by Flatbush Avenue, August 1974   16
A Chicago Story   18
A Bride with Brass   19
Poem on Our 28th Wedding Anniversary   20
Summer Camp   21 
Flew   22
Down by Fulton Fish Market   24
The Morning Bus   26
On Halsted Street   27
Lily   28
Poem for Father’s Day   29
Poem for the Wooden Shutters and Little Mesh
  Grilles in Old Confessional Booths   30
Rules for Being an Altar Boy at Saint John
  Vianney Parish for the Liturgical Year 1964   32
Such Delicious Absence   34
Learning Owl   35
Poem in Which I Am Sitting At the Sullivan Square Station On the Orange Line in Boston
  Staring at the Old Schrafft’s Candy Factory, and Contemplating The Rubble and Smash of an Affair
  With a Young Lady That Has Slumped From Bad to Worse to Epically Awful,
  And Realizing That Even as I Am Idly Pondering the Detritus of This Terrible Affair
  Am Much More Interested in The History of the Old Candy Factory Than I Am in the Young Lady,  
  Which Probably Explains, Very Well Indeed, Why the Affair Is Disastrous, as I Am
  Not in Love With Her at All in the Least, Which I Realize Just as the Train Arrives   36 
Warming Up   37
The Tender Next Minute   38
What People Gave Me One Evening In Rural Coastal Oregon after I Told
  Them Stories in a Lovely Tiny Library   39
Poem for the Tall Man Who Interrupted Me Last Night During a Reading to Say That He Didn’t Much Care for
  What I Was Reading and Could I Read My Better Stuff?    40
Poem in Which My Wife Spoons Her Mother’s Ashes from a Soulless Metal
  Box to the Beloved Old Blue Cookie Jar   41
Once in a While We Should Say What Is   42
In the Sacristy Just Before the Dawn Mass   44
Pop   45
The Usual Perfect Mask   46
Poem for My Friend Lee   47
Basketball Dads   48
Poem for My Friend John Roscoe   50
A Tenderness in the World   51
Ten Thousand Smiles   52
Poem in Which Ray Davies and Dave Davies Huddle at the Top of the Staircase at Their Home
  In Muswell Hill in London Listening to Their Aunts   53
Tyee   54
Poem for an Editor   55
Near Otis, Oregon   56 
Spectacle   58
Poem for a Guy I Knew in College Who Was Not Actually My Friend   59
Here’s What I Think When I Think about That   60
Their Raptorish Privac  y 62
The Tree Surgeon Talks about Good Wood   63
The Hurling Match   64
Miraculum   66
Just Now Right Now   67
How to Dress for Your Wedding   68
What We Think We Forget   70
The Western Yellowjacket: A Note   71
The Peach Pie   72
The Things We Say When We Have Nothing to Say   74
Poem in Which Four Men, after Hauling Flowers from a Church
  After a Funeral, Discuss Poetics   75
The Most Arrogant Knife   76
Poem for a Quiet Lady at Saint Patrick’s Church in Oregon   77
Poem for a Friend to Whom I Wrote Every Week   78
Swagger   79
The Best Rebounder I Ever Had   80
Questions I Was Asked Today by Sixth-Graders   82 
Yes   83
Finally Is a Lot Further Away Than Sick Ever Expected   84
Poem in Which Dave Kingman Hits a Home Run That Is Amazingly Still Traveling   36
Years Later 86 Skiffling Shuffling Skittering Scuffling   87
Best Day Ever   88
The First Layer of Favorite   89
Holy and Fearsome   90
Owls Are the Bears of the Sky   91
Whatever It Is You Think You Are Chasing, You Just Ran Away from It   92
A Shy Expedition   93
Could There Be a Badger Jesus?   94
The Antipodean Comma   95
And Then There Is This   96
Cards That Are Good for Scraping Ice off Your Car   97
Poem in Which a Love Letter Floats over Western South Dakota   98
Nailed by Wonder   99
The Slight Light   100
A Swirl of Affectionate Air   101
A Poem for Literature Teacher Beth Morgan of Lassiter High in Georgia   102
Poem for Dave McIrvin   103
How Can You Write a Poem if You Are an Essayist?   104 
After   105
Seanchaí   106
The Tale You Did Not Know You Needed to Know   108