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