Cain

The delicate action of grace in the soul is profoundly disturbed by all human violence. Passion, when it is inordinate, does violence to the spirit and its most dangerous violence is that in which we seem to find peace. Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.    Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude.

Like a delicate wind

your grace shaped my infant soul

filled my emptiness

with angelic form

and I was beautiful

and good

until, jealous for your love, 

I slew my brother.

Now I fear the abyss

that opens beneath me

the grave 

of my sin-withered soul.

To you I pray

forgive me! bring me back

from the numbing peace

of careless, empty 

days.

(1 February 2013)