Sister Eileen Haugh
Rochester, Minnesota, USA
Poet’s statement
This poem, like so many others I have written, was born of a need to express how I was feeling about a certain happening or person. Here I am contemplating the cancer that is slowly eating away at my life and what it will mean in terms of leaving behind so much that I have loved, most importantly the people so dear to me. This writing holds a hopeful belief that, hard as it is, God is drawing me into the oneness of all.
In my ending . . .
Stanisław Masłowski, Polish (1853–1926)
Oil on canvas
124 × 220 cm
Now I Will
Now will I lay me down
Like a circlet of moon
On the unfriendly dark
(Behold I am doing something new)
Your face
Turns toward me in
White invitation
Burning my being
Totally into Yours
So we are one.
And all the real-church
Real-world, pain,
Question, beauty, what
Change, prayer,
Now, when, horizon
Contemplating
Fiercely
What comes next.
And God’s hand
Turns to me
Like a circlet of moon,
Gathers me in
So we are one.
. . . is my meaning.
SISTER EILEEN HAUGH, OSF (Order of Saint Francis) attended the College of Saint Teresa in Winona, Minnesota. She received the religious habit and was sent to teach in Chicago. She taught in various cities, and was named the principal in several schools including Winona’s Catholic Schools after its reorganization with Cotter Junior High. Leaving Cotter, she was assigned to the role of personal secretary to the Congregational President. Sister Eileen has worked as an assistant in the Communications Office at Assisi Heights, writing whenever the Spirit moves her.
Highlighted in Frontispiece Volume 3, Issue 2 – Spring 2011
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