Encounter

Encounter

Mia Schilling Grogan

   for Sister Mary Hansbury

Sister sits by the banks of the Ganges
praying over the psalms, asking
laments and pleadings to anchor her here:

settled on this bench by the ten men
who carried her, still dry, from the river’s edge,
where she had fallen. Her foot swollen now,

“Oh Lord, make haste to help me,” she repeats,
The familiar words sinking like large rocks
into the eddying hymns and laughter.

Still, she’s caught in the rushing fury of worries:
Can she hobble to the ashram? Should she
shorten her stay?  A hospital here?

She closes her eyes to pray more fervently,
and the air stills.  Suddenly she feels on her forehead
the wet press of a warm sponge that turns out

 to be the kiss of a cow’s nose.
“O Sister,” the man running over cries,
“A blessing!” 

And she sits bathing
in the bovine gaze
of God. 

---

Mia Schilling Grogan
Professor & Poet

Mia is an Associate Professor of English at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.  She is a medievalist who publishes in the areas of hagiography and women’s spiritual literature.  Her poems have appeared in journals including Light, America, First Things, Mezzo Cammin, The Windhover, Southern Poetry Review, and Presence.  

Photography by Elina Volkova