Prayer

The first time I came across Carol Ann Duffy's work I was on the tube heading to Queensway. One of her poems was plastered over the head of the person sitting opposite me. As I read it I was saved from the crush, so beautiful was it that I scribbled it down with an eyeliner pencil. The poem was 'Prayer'. So can you imagine my feelings when I heard Carol Ann reading it out loud on The South Bank Show?

She is a remarkable poet and 'Prayer' is my favourite. I've read it out loud many times, mainly to the cat but I don't do it justice.
But when she read it she made her simple words about the faithless bleed all over my ears.

Some poems are so awesome, so magnificent that I'm not comfortable in their presence.

For those who haven't read it...




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.

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.
Finistere

Carol Ann Duffy