For Advent: What Gabriel could have said

You have found favour,

Mary, you have indeed;

come, you will bear a child

and Joseph is not the father.

You have found favour,

Mary, come; your neighbors

will question your purity

with rumor and gossip

and speculation, for as

long as you are in Nazareth.

You have found favour,

Mary, come; people will look

at your son and question

his parentage, always.

You have found favour,

Mary, come. Your faithfulness

will be questioned

and your husband pitied

and his judgment doubted

because he did not

put you away.

You have found favour,

Mary, come. The only thing

you have, your reputation,

will be taken from you

long before it is returned.

You have found favour,

Mary, come. Faith is
the cross.

I understand.
I come.

I am the Lord’s servant.

May it be to me

As you have said.

This poem is submitted to the One Word Blog Carnival hosted by Peter Pollock, where the prompt today is "come."

This poem is also submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems, please visit dVerse Poets. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.

Painting: The Annunciation, oil on canvas by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1898). Phildelphia Museum of Art.