Prayer

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 man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy (1955 -

S1 …
Sometimes quite unexpected we are caught with a sudden beautiful impulse from nature and we are completely overwhelmed and stop what we are doing in appreciation. The woman is unaware who is giving her this song. She uses her hands as she looks up into the tree, so maybe needing protection from the sun. The tree or the birds in the tree have arrested her attention.

S2 …
The rolling motion of a train is likened to chanting as it moves along the track in the distance. It looks like this is happening as the man reflects on something from his youth. And he is now confronting the truth of what happened. It appears heart wrenching and painful to recall. A train may be involved. It has arrested his attention and like the first stanza it could be likened to a prayer.

S3 …
The lodger is in his room while a child in the house is playing the piano. It is dusk a fitting time for grief as the lodger looks out of his window and reflects on a loss maybe a child in his family who played when he was a parent. The calling of the name  and the recalling of a name in the experience of grief perhaps.

S4 …
The mentioning of the fishing forecast reminds me of my youth when this was familiar when listening to the radio. And prayers abound from the many that are listening and thinking of those out at sea. Prayers emanating from inside the warm of homes to the dark foreboding ships at sea.

All these gifts from everyday life are likened to prayer.

Providence springs to mind, if one believes in a spiritual force taking care of us on an individual basis. A very comforting thought when we are depressed and nobody seems to care for us.

A detailed analysis is on this Site – “Prayer,” by Carol Ann Duffy (saltproject.org)   The following notes are taken from this link …

1 … Minims  are half-notes written on a page of musical notation.

2 … And BBC Radio has long broadcast the “Shipping Forecast” for the various seas around the British Isles, waters divided into 31 sea areas, including Rockall, Malin, Dogger, and Finisterre. These regular broadcasts, especially the ones late at night, are for many Britons a deeply familiar touchstone: the announcer’s voice methodically reciting the sea areas all around the islands, one by one, forecasting the weather.

3 … “Finisterre” (pronounced “FIN-iss-tair,” rhymes with “BIN-kiss-fair”) literally means “end of the world”; the sea area’s name was recently changed to “FitztRoy,” but many Britons (such as the poet Duffy herself) grew up hearing the older name “Finisterre” repeatedly intoned on BBC Radio…

Cape Finisterre is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain.
In Roman times it was believed to be the end of the known world. The name Finisterre, like that of Finistère in France, derives from the Latin finis terrae, meaning “end of the earth”.