Some books make you slow down, breathe deeper, and see the world a little differently. That’s exactly what One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle did for me.
One Long River of Song is a collection of essays written by Brian Doyle before he passed away. He writes about so many things: family, faith, nature, politics, funny little moments, and memories from his own life. The most impressive part of the book, to me, is the way he looks at the world with wonder.
The book begins with a short essay about hummingbirds, called Joyas voladoras, or “flying jewels,” by the first white explorers in the Americas. That piece completely pulled me in. The way Doyle describes something so small with so much love and detail reminded me of Braiding Sweetgrass, one of my favorite reads. Right away, I knew this book was going to be something special. And it truly was.
Even when he isn’t talking about spiritual things, his writing still feels thoughtful and full of meaning. He makes readers feel like they’re listening to someone who truly pays attention to life, someone curious, grateful, and always searching for beauty, even in the smallest things.
When I finished the book, I felt a mix of peace and sadness. Sad because Brian Doyle is no longer with us, and we won’t get more of his wise and kind words. But mostly thankful for the joy and heart he left behind in this beautiful collection. If you’re looking for something that makes you feel more alive, this book is one I highly recommend.
My Favorite Bits
When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.
Brian Doyle, One Long River Song
Let us consider silence as destination, ambition, maturity of mind, focusing device, filter, prism, compass point, necessary refuge, spiritual refreshment, touchstone, lodestar, home, natural and normal state in which let’s face it we began our existence in the warm seas of our mothers, all those months when we did not speak, and swam in salt, and dreamed oceanic dreams, and heard the throb and hum of mother, and the murmur and mutter of father, and the distant thrum of a million musics waiting patiently for you to be born.
Brian Doyle, One Long River Song
When we are young we build a self, a persona, a story in which to reside, or several selves in succession, or several at once, sometimes; when we are older we take on other roles and personas, other masks and duties; and you and I both know men and women who become trapped in the selves they worked so hard to build, so desperately imprisoned that sometimes they smash their lives simply to escape who they no longer wish to be; but finally, I think, if we are lucky, if we read the book of pain and loss with humility, we realize that we are all broken and small and brief, that none among us is ultimately more valuable or rich or famous or beautiful than another; and then, perhaps, we begin to understand something deep and true about humility.
Brian Doyle, One Long River Song
We say yes when we mean I would rather not. We say no when we mean I would say yes except for all the times yes has proven to be a terrible idea. We say no thank you when every fiber in our bodies is moaning o yes please. We say you cannot when what we mean is actually you can but you sure by God ought not to. We say no by staring directly at the questioner and not saying anything whatsoever.
Brian Doyle, One Long River Song
Your library is where the community stores its treasures. It’s the house that imagination built. It’s where all the stories that matter are gathered together and celebrated and shared. It’s exactly like a church, it seems to me. People come to it communally for something that’s deep and ancient and important beyond an easy explanation. Who you are as a town is in the library. It’s why when you want to destroy a place you burn down the library. People who fear freedom fear libraries. The urge to ban a book is always an urge to put imagination in jail. But in the end you cannot imprison it, just as you cannot imprison the urge to freedom, because those things are in every soul, and there are too many souls to jail or murder them all, and that’s a fact. So a library is a shout of defiance too, if you think about it: dorn in aghaidh an dorchadas, a fist against the dark.
Brian Doyle, One Long River Song
Author: Brian Doyle
Publication date: 3 December 2019
Number of pages: 250 pages
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