Antiphon

Deep calls to deep

and my soul calls out to You in return.

I see the joy,

I see the excitement,

I see the revelry and abandon

as the piper leads the dance.

But where is the reverence?

Where is the awe?

The gifts of God seem mere playthings

in the minds and hands of the heedless.

Deep calls to deep

and my soul calls out to You in return.

The gifts of God,

more than mortals realize,

are more than treasure, more than limitless.

God does not discriminate,

pouring out on all who ask.

So many glean,

reaping gifts without knowing the Giver,

reaping love without knowing the Lover.

Deep calls to deep

and my soul calls out to You in return.

I want to know

the Giver of the graces.

I want to know the depths from which they flow.

The material without God

Is empty entertainment.

God the Giver

unites the Spirit and material,

the two becoming the fullness of God.

Deep calls to deep

and my soul calls out to You in return.

© 2008 M. Romeo LaFlamme

A Sacrament of Reconciliation: A Guy Carswell Mystery

Someone rapped on my apartment door for the fifth time in as many minutes.

I forced one eye open and looked at the alarm clock, 9:43 AM.  I threw back the wool blanket and pulled myself away from the buxom blond that followed me home the night before.  She stirred and stretched like a cat, and pulled the blanket into a bunched mass around her neck.  My feet hit the cold floor and I mentally cursed the landlord, something that was becoming a daily occurrence as a cold front swept down from Canada.  I grabbed my robe and threw it on.  I had to hold it closed because I had lost the belt a couple of days after buying it at The Salvation Army Thrift Store.   I shuffled through the living room cluttered with old newspapers and magazines.  A worn copy of a Cornell Woolrich novel was spread eagle over the arm of the chair adding yet another crease to its spine.

The First of March

I walk along secluded from all that surrounds me,

Encased in a prison invisible to my eyes.

I am unable to touch,

And nothing is able to touch me.
I cry out to my Creator and my words bounce back,

Reflected by the prison I cannot see.

I am unable to reach Him,

And He in turn cannot reach me.
As I step the very ether parts and moves around me,

Leaving me untouched by sun and breeze and rain.

I long to feel them, breathe them,

But the prison keeps them at bay.
The sun is brilliant in the sky but its warmth does not reach my face.

The breeze stirs the trees but leaves my hair unmoved.

The cooling rain will feed the grass but will not slake my thirst.

It is all inches away but further from me than my dreams.

 

I have to touch, I have to feel,

I have to know I’m alive,

But at the thought of reaching out my senses clench,

If I dare will it all flee as longing rends my being?

 

My mind commands my hand to move but fear keeps it at my side.

My heart commands my eyes to cry but ennui keeps them dry.

 

A fleeting impulse and a muscle moves.

My heart races. My hand raises.

If I reach and dare to try to touch,

Will it move from my grasp as the prison pushes it aside?

 

Take my hand O my God and move it closer to thee.

 

The tree remains and I feel the papery bark against my skin.

I rub my hand against it and it flakes leaving wispy marks of green.

It has not fled but instead has fed me with its primal soul,

Throbbing and filling my longing with its life.

 

On my knees I touch the grass with its silken verdant blades.

I grasp the rock and let its coolness wash me clean.

I breathe the air in draughts like a man missing death by mere moments.

The sun…Its warmth reaches my face and brings my skin alive.

 

I know if I can touch these and feel these and absorb them into my soul,

Then I can once again reach my Creator and know I’m not alone.

 

© 1996 M. Romeo LaFlamme