The Pilgrim Road 5 Poem by David McLansky

The Mummers (5)

Pelted by cruel boys with stones,
Hunted, hounded, left alone,
Exhausted by her endless chores,
In her face slammed many doors;
She knew little peace that endless summer,
And in the Fall there came the Mummers
There to enact the birth of Christ
For food and lodging as their price;
It was on the night of Mary's labor,
The night was born Our Hope and Savior
That as the Mummers rehearsed the play
That Ann gave birth 'mid stacks of hay;
It was a tactic of this band
To place a baby of the land
In the crib as Christ portrayed,
An honor for which the rich would pay;
But on the evening of the play,
No babe was found in which to lay
The object of Our Hopes Redeemed
In the crib to play the scene;
But in the barn they heard the groans
As Ann lay birthing all alone,
Upon the hay stained red with blood,
As cows and goats calmly chewed their cud;
And so the leader of the band
Took the babe from Ann's weak hands
And placed it on the scaffold stage
As it whimpered distraught with rage;



The people came from miles around
Farmers, merchants of the town
There to praise Our Lord Reborn
Played by a babe, an object scorned.
To see performed the birth of Christ,
To cross themselves as Priests did thrice.
To feel the presence of The Lord,
Recreated on these crude boards;
To praise Him as He humbly lay
Brought to life within this play;
Their Faith and Hopes again restored,
Christ Our Savior and Our Sacred Lord.

After the play had been performed
They gathered about the child adorned
With rosemary, thyme and cardamom,
There his form to gaze upon;
They knelt and kissed his swaddled feet,
Marveling how his skin smelled sweet;
Asking favors of the Lord,
That health and wealth be reassured;
Little knowing that on that night
The woman they had cursed on sight
Had held within her taunted womb
The very child they Christ assumed.