A volunteer at McAuley Convent in Merion, Pennsylvania, Sister Angela Fellin, 90, is featured in our National Poetry Month series with her poem “Journey,” a reflection about life’s vicissitudes. Despite efforts to chart a plan for our lives, “the ocean of change sweeps us where it will,” she said. The challenge “is in the living into what is and appreciating the journey as having meaning. If we trust the going, all will be well.”
Her second poem, “Bittersweet,” was inspired by a friend’s struggles with a relationship.
The Journey
By Sister Angela Fellin
Click here to listen to the author read this poem
Somehow my anchor disappeared
slipped away and I
untethered drifted.
Where would I go?
What awaited hidden
In the mystery of going?
I dreamed of lofty horizons
beckoning me to the unknown.
But the boat of life
pushed by the currents
led me onward.
No destination revealed.
Lost, I searched the ocean
seeking hope, expecting
a revelation.
The land far away-
hope wavering n the winds,
tossed about- alone.
Surrendering to the “NOW”
discovering in the journey
the secret is in the “GOING.”
Bittersweet
Purple bunches hanging
luscious to the eye
Swathed in leaves, soft green
tendrils gently twined.
Wheat golden, bending, touched
by the breeze,
pleasant to behold.
Bread and wine, the things of earth
become for us His life.
Eat my body, drink my blood
hard saying – this indeed,
To sink my teeth into that food,
To quench my thirst on blood.
The grape but decoration there
‘til punctured, crushed-then savored sweet.
The wheat just grains that
blow about ‘til ground
and formed- bread feeds.
Life too, can rest out there – apart,
You, friend, remain aloof
‘til pain has crushed the core of us.
Crushed-
love comes pouring forth.