Some days, not everyday mind…it seems some of us cannot, will not pray to the deity/ies, however from somewhere, God alone knows where(??!!), a prayer/thought/wish/longing utters itself…simply autonomously of ourselves. I know not how. But it does, apparently in some involuntarily way, via the ever ‘on’ senses, the external world intersects with our constructs of the self and the ‘lived’ life bringing the two into co-existence.
So, thus…a woman (‘source’ and traditional standard barer of the weight of the world) will lift her head (bowed/prayer/reverence/forgiveness/loss/seeking) from the sieve of her hands (life/possibilities ‘slipping through the hands’ as water runs through a sieve, escaping/freeing/lost)…an imperfect chalice in which to rest the weariness of the soul as it connects through the conscious mind, commonly assumed to reside in the head, and stare (as in the senses arrested/concentrated) at the minims (musical notes) sung by a tree, (the breathtaking beauty of bird song and/or the whispered voice of rustling leaves as living notation staved on branches) a sudden gift. To receive, unexpectedly something special from beyond the self, an auditory discourse between the self/externality on the wider meaning of existence. Awakened sentience of the dichotomy of past/present. A gift, the glory of the experiential as creatures of the ‘now,’ as well as the ‘when’ and ‘then.’ Perhaps the gift is alive with memories, connotations, potentially anchoring us to a better/safer/happier more grounded, less transient, more certain place and time; the past translated into the simple beauties and joys of ‘now’ possibilities. Connection.
Some nights, not all nights though, perhaps because our lives cycle from highs to lows with ordinary plateaus in between, although we are faithless, speak for yourself in this secular and non-secular space we inhabit, don’t we all believe in something? Love, hope, charity but ‘clearly’ it is not faith we cling to, believe in – the truth (whose version? Would we know it if it slapped us in the face?) enters our hearts, (the feelings of the faithless in our secular, ‘you could once have it all’ society. Enters the repository of feeling, without our bidding…simply diffuses into us, a small familiar pain; we may all become strangers to the truth but have all ‘known’ it at some point and retain the capacity to flinch in recognition when it enters the loins of consciousness, “the truth hurts.” then a man will stand stock still, unfalteringly caught up in the moment/past moments, hearing his youth (remembered soundscape/feelingscape) in the distant latin chanting of a train. Repetitive sounds, over and over re-capturing, transporting him to the spaces of lost, perhaps more grounded times. A prayer bares repitition, chanting. As the train literally transports and brings echoed sounds of the past to him; sounds of incantation/prayer perhaps exercise soothing, mesmerising, hypnotic power or recalled dread -“stock still.” Connection.
Pray for us now. We the secular, the Godless…in need of the redemptive power of prayers? Grade 1 piano scales, imperfect, as we are, alive with possibility through repetition, over and over, of attaining perfection as prayers repeated over and over may deliver us perfection, console/draw back to simpler, perhaps more certain/happier days (for he is in need of consolation, as we all are, imperfect wayfarers along life’s bumpy highway) the lodger (a transient as we all are in the widest possible reading of meaning but more particularly as not ‘owning,’ sinking roots, making a commitment to place/others) looking out across a Midlands town. Anonymity…perhaps contemplating his position, his fate in this pertinently ‘middle/in-between’ space. Wishy washy, elements of the inconsequential, of passing. “Lost in translation.” ‘Found’ fleetingly in re-connecting with another life, past life. Connection.
Then dusk, (darkness is descending; perhaps the relief of connecting with the past self/others/’lighter’ times is diminishing and transitory. Darkness of disconnection, aloneness, now, returning) and someone calls a child’s name as though they named their loss. ‘Calling a child in’ to come home, as was, in shared rememberd pasts, could sound like ‘a call to prayers’..urgent, insistent. As one shrieks out the name of a lost loved one in disbelief/grief/prayer…urging them return…a ‘voiced’ denial of loss. Connection.
Darkness outside. The isolating power of ‘darkness;’ solitude, loss, separation is a universal connective. Inside, within the cocoon of home, the relative safety of ‘place,’ a radio’s prayer – Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre (literally, landsend). As the shipping forecast guides sailors safely around the hidden hazards of the coastline the radio’s prayer guides us to the brief respite and relative safety of sleep towards the possibility of fresh beginnings and the possibility of re-connection. The cantation of this ‘universal’ prayer has the gentle, reliably reassuring potential to steers us safely away from feelings of loneliness and disconnection, binding us in a ‘common’ social culture.
So many ‘registers’ in the poem: Insider/outsider – connection/disconnection, past/present – the sensory as vital mechanism of recall – auditory, words/meaning and being….
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