The Pilgrim Road 3 Poem by David McLansky

The Priest's Decision (3)

My dear child, I am bereaved
That in this man you've been deceived;
He robbed you from Our Mother Church
And now he's left you in the lurch;
He left you swelling up with child,
This rough-hewn soldier, this creature wild,
You say he's gone off to his wars,
That take him off to foreign shores;
But can you take him at his word
Have not his actions been absurd?
He steals you from your pious cell
And leaves you with no home to dwell;
He is a rogue, and unbeliever
The vilest kind, a cruel deceiver;
He played upon your innocence,
You are a child who has no sense;
And having no place to turn
You return to us, the place you've spurned;
Confess your sins, abjure your lust,
Do penance for your broken trust;
The child you bear must be forsaken,
You must give him up, be from you taken,
A mother who's conceived in lust,
Is she in whom God has no trust.