Missing"Little Flower of Carmel,
Saint of our own day,
lovingly we come to you
to learn your little way."
The morning was muffled,
murky, mist-filled.
Droplets splattered,
scattered, spattered.
The day's dark demise
came without warning.
"He's gone"
was the solemn pronouncement.
How could this be? A nightmare
I'd sworm that never would be!
He's missing.
Another missing came to mind,
that missing of the war-like kind,
half a century or so ago.
He's not misplaced,
misbegotten, misfiled.
The love of my life is missing.
What misery these missings!
What malevolence, what agony!
I remember well the ecstasy
to end that awful agony.
The phone rang.
"Dear St. Therese,
do not turn away.
Drop down just one little rose,
the rose we need today."
The missing is over.
The trumpets blared.
The angels sang.
Thanksgiving welled
for answered prayer.
I slowly pick out the melody
with one finger, on the piano keys,
remembering third grade childish voices,
siging for my miracle of long ago.
"Jesus and His Mother
smiled on you from birth.
Now you spend your heaven
doing good on earth."
A new kind of missing engulfs us now,
a slipping away, ever so slow.
Can I pray away this agony?
The dreadful desolation is almost
more than I can bear.
I can relish each day's
wee pockets of joy...
a wink, a smile,
a prayer to share,
a song to sing,
a tender word
where love is heard,
a hand to hold.
But I would another ecstasy.
Can phones ring in eternity?
by Colleen Gordon