Saturday, December 23, 2017

Whose child is this ?


'Mary' : sculpture at Saffron Walden church


Whose child is this,
a cuckoo all warm and suckling ?
If I say you are mine
Your eyes tell me that you make me a mother
giving me no right to call you mine.
If I claim to have given you life
you disarm me with a smile that says
you will give me mine.
Your father has only spoken to me through messengers,
I cannot picture his face
although I know his love.
You were not conceived in passion
nor touched into life by intimate caresses.
Can I call you my child ?
You were mine for forty lengthening weeks
and, in your life,
you will not know such intimacy again.

Will you answer my questions when you grow ?
Will you let me be your mother
when darker clouds arrive
and I need to grieve
for you,
for me, for the child I kept, 
a loan from God


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