James Matthew Wilson

When my wife and I moved away from the Midwest some fifteen years ago, we began an age of perpetual homesickness. I’d tear up at the sight of Notre Dame’s stadium on Saturday football broadcasts, recalling our years in South Bend where I did my graduate studies, only just ended. I watched every . . . . Continue Reading »

It seems a silly thing, an object ratherFor study by the great pathologists,That anyone should live in fear of Eros;But just think how their names have swelled to lists: The god who chased a woman to a tree;The Moor who crushed the breath within his love;That queen ensconced within a strange . . . . Continue Reading »

Both natural and artificial things bear a parabolic or symbolic quality to them. Autumn as a season, for example, is evocative of many things: the darkness of decay, to be sure, alongside bold beauty.  Continue Reading »

Busy with many things, I know you are,And watch you turn away and close the door.I see it in the way you drive your car,In how things clutter on your kitchen floor.Someone will advertise new ways to mend it,To find a method and a discipline,But you and they both know you’ll never end it,Just fall . . . . Continue Reading »

The snow this morning falls on brook and rushIn great flakes wending slantwise without purpose,The sky above a wakening tent of grey.So does my daughter wake, and say she’s sad.For, sorrow sometimes strikes us with its bolt,But mostly is a kind of atmosphere.It doesn’t enter us. We enter it,And . . . . Continue Reading »

Litanies are one of my favorite forms of prayer: a rare pleasure that I look forward to on feast days, and a mystery that I sometimes contemplate and try to understand. Continue Reading »

If Generation X has something to share, it is in part that the search for a good life need not entail generation-spanning currents of revolution, a merchandizing campaign, or an authorized sacred book. Continue Reading »

This woman, cast in bronze,Lowers her eyes uponAn infant on her lap,His naked bulk enfoldedWithin her draping mantle. She cradles him, at rest,While fold on fold descends,Concealing grace with graceExcept where that cloth breaksTo bare one slip of flesh. Here, on the desk, they sit,Where joyless . . . . Continue Reading »

The young man in his cell     Receives his guestWho all his heart should tell     And leave there blest.In quiet companyWe shall a marvel seeAs every thought shall be     By that heart known. To Rome the pilgrims came     Poor as God chose . . . . Continue Reading »

The road flares burning where the truck swerved off     Just before midnight show the streaks in gravelAnd banged-up tailgate slanted in its trough.     Those passing—weary, wondering—slow their travelOn sight of massed police and long enough    . . . . Continue Reading »