Salute to the Collegeville Institute (1967-2017)

A scholar reads while a child plays on a Collegeville Institute patio on Stumpf Lake.

On the banks of Stumpf Lake
one turns into Flynntown,
named after an early
university coach (originally
planned to change with
the name of each new coach);

At the end of the village
the scholars and pastors drive
a winding road,
image of the complexities
of the search,
of the never ending
quest for the right idea
written so William Faulkner
would be pleased.

Each family
in their own home
designed by Marcel Breuer:
think New York, the Whitney Museum,
think Paris, the UNESCO building.

Each thinks thoughts beyond
the dormitories in Flynntown.
They write books, articles,
on themes this side
of never thought before.
They crumple the mold
inherited from yesterday’s
prodigies, unsure
their own will endure.
The children bring noise,
laughter,
and pee on the floor.

Diplomas are out,
achievements are in.
They discuss stone boundaries
not to be violated
and then trespass.

The more than brilliant,
the bald, the flowing locks,
from Saint John’s,
with soup stains
on the scapulars,
mix and discuss
what no scale can weigh.

The scholars gather for fish
and roulade baked too long
and bread baked
until it splits at the top.
The beer, a feral liquid that loosens
hesitant tongues.

The pastoral people
face the broken masonry of lapses,
dismantle the lopsided
scaffolding,
and build what cannot be built,
diamond skyscrapers
out of lumps of mud.

The windows
open on to trees,
invite owls, pileated woodpeckers,
and deer. And then
there are the wild turkeys.

Who hides that unwritten code
that every person must break,
written from the deep places
of the soul? Each cannot do it
alone, but with the wind,
and more than a nudge from heaven,
it’s broken,
and one sees the naked kiss
between learning and beauty.

In honor of founder Fr. Kilian McDonnell’s 100th birthday on Thursday, September 16, 2021, we offer this poem he wrote for the 50th anniversary of the Collegeville Institute.

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