Reading by Moira Eribenne   (revisited 18/12/2011)

 

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

 

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a young man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

 

Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child’s name as though they name their loss.

 

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. 

It is some time since I responded to this poem in the manner of a stream of consciousness and now revisiting those responses I wish to add some short notes and clarify some of the emphases in that posting.

Through the poem’s structure Duffy creates a regularity of rhythm one associates with praying through the four stanza, four line ‘rhythm,’  with the exception of the  final stanza which breaks to two lines. Perhaps in changing the meter like this Duffy compels us to imagine where the direction of the poem is moving; The risks and uncertainties of the world outside seemingly contrasts with the reassuring ‘sameness’ of indoors, our bedtime routines, characterized by the regularity of Radio 4’s hypnotic, chant-like shipping forecast. Safely, safely, guiding ships home to harbor, to rest, at end of day like  a bedtime prayer answered.

Beyond the clear observations and suppositions of the first stanza, Duffy gives voice to the magical, the special, in the relative normality of the routine of our days. Like prayers we have not thought to utter, we are gifted with thoughts, experiences, recollections and answers to our ponderings, fears and questions. The first stanza, a vignette of ‘our days,’ without recourse to formal, acknowledged prayer. The second stanza opens with a snapshot of our nights…one night, one man, one ‘aide de memoire’ without faith but aware of the painful truths of his own being. Here Duffy suggests that like the un-asked for ‘prayer,’ the ‘un-asked for’ truth enters our faithless hearts. Faithlessness perhaps in the sense of what we had and what we are. Stanza  three moves from recall to a clear ‘call to prayer’…”Pray for us now,”  as ‘we’ seek consolation in everyday repetitions: piano scales, and a child being called home as dusk falls, as any child at play would be across this town and numerous others in the land. ‘We’ want certainty, normality, routine. Prayer is especially invoked when the expected, when normality breaks down and we become panicky…we call out hopeful of a response…fearful the child will not return…it is reasonable to conjecture we would call out in prayer…a prayer demanding answer…hopefully, faithfully…Then the final stanza contrasts the metaphorical and physical darkness of the world outside with the metaphorical and physical ‘lightness’ of the world indoors, the known, the safely routine, which repeats again and again with the regularity of a well rehearsed prayer.

 

Some days, not everyday mind…although we cannot pray, it seems some of us cannot, will not pray to the deity/deities, 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 to all we are, were, might be.

 

Some nights, not all nights though, perhaps because our lives cycle from highs to lows with ordinary plateaus in between, although we are faithless, (generalizing to the nation 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, that 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 sound-scape / feeling-scape) 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 repetition, chanting.  As the train aurally and metaphorically 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 to lost youth, lost locus.

 

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, practice, 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,’ 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, a Midlands town.  Wishy  washy, elements of the inconsequential, of passing.  “Lost in translation.”  ‘Found’ fleetingly in re-connecting with another life, past life.  Connection to acts of prayer-like repetition that give us faith in gifts, even kinship.

 

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 from playing out’ to come home, as was, in shared, remembered pasts, could sound like ‘a call to prayers’…hopeful, urgent, insistent, even desperate.  As one shrieks out the name of a lost loved one in disbelief/grief/prayer…urging them return…a ‘voiced’ denial of loss.  Connection to our hopes, fears, trust.

 

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,’ the radio’s prayer – Rockall. Malin. Dogger.  Finisterre (literally, lands end).  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-connection.

 

There are so many ‘registers’ in the poem:  Insider/outsider – connection/disconnection, past/present – the sensory as vital mechanism of recall – auditory, words/meaning and being….