Dawn Tears, Spring Light, Rood Peace

This book invites the reader into a cloister of poems, there to look with eyes of faith through the arches of rhythm and rhyme onto the wide vistas, terrible chasms, and hazy mountains of Mystery, Beauty, and Love. Written by monks of Silverstream Priory, some poems let memory and imagination search the corners of the earth, there to glean the sorrows, hopes, and joys of men, and so present them to the Father. Others draw from the deep wells of tradition, with verse translations of ancient Latin hymns, or new compositions in that Catholic tongue. From there, gazing upwards, free verse explores the dark night of the soul, only to discover a sky star-speckled with the hope of immortality. Themes such as spiritual darkness, search, and self-gift, are juxtaposed with pieces composed for recreation celebrations of various brothers’ name days. Poems that exult in the beauty of nature find a place beside ones which meditate the economy of salvation in Scripture, the Liturgy, and religious life.A brief authors’ preface explains the provenance of the poems and the different sections of the book. On one level, they move from time to eternity, from the created to the uncreated. Dawn is a daily beginning; spring, a yearly resurrection and transition; the cross, an eternal reality in which time is subsumed and redeemed. They also interweave the interior and subjective with the exterior and objective. Tears spring from what we experience; we perceive the exterior world by the created lights of the universe and are led into the eternal; supernatural peace drops down into our hearts and minds as a gift of God that surpasses nature, a result of God’s redemptive realities.Praise for Dawn Tears, Spring Light, Rood Peace: PoemsRoman Catholicism will return to Ireland when the monasteries are rebuilt and poetry flourishes once again. The present volume is a first offering in view of this grand work of restoration-a matter of blood of the Irish soul, of the sweat and labour of the poor, and of many tears.-Abbot Philip Anderson OSB, Clear Creek Abbey, OklahomaOut of this delightful volume comes the air of a community of monks where immersion in the tradition of the church is also vivid openness to the daily world. These are poems worked over for their craft....Biblical resonance and legendary importance alike emerge here, as do meditations of pure lyric intensity and longing that take the reader deep into the joy and challenge of monastic life.-Glenn C. Arbery PhD, President, Wyoming Catholic CollegeHere we find the fruits of the prayerful silence which leads to the contemplative dilation of the soul into the fullness of God’s presence.-Joseph Pearce, author Tolkien: Man and Myth and Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G. K. ChestertonThis book of poems, fruit of contemplation of the monks of Silverstream Priory, is a gift....Most are evidently born of the deepest silence and prayer; some are written in fun and to entertain in Chestertonian style. All offer a privileged glimpse into a life lived close to God and steeped in the significance of language and beauty. Many of the pieces are akin to prayers and will be helpful in Adoration and the spiritual life of the reader....this book allows us to become, in a small but rich sense, a part of the monks’ way.-Sally Read, author Night’s Bright Darkness and Dawn of This Hunger