Analysis of Prayers of the People
We pray for all who have died, that they may have a place in your eternal kingdom. Remember especially...
--Book of Common Prayer, 393
I said your name again, your simple name.
First name, last name, four syllables spoken into the silence.
I hadn't said your name out loud in five years.
It sounded like glass breaking.
like a magic spell: sacred, full of potential,
powerful enough to break a heart, again.
There are three categories of names, I'm told.
The merely living, the merely dead, and the famous.
Marlene Dietrich, Napoleon, Elvis.
Dead is no the first thing you think of.
Living reverberates in the name.
His story, her story, floating on the surface
of knowing minds; wreckage
that refuses to sink into oblivion.
But you are the merely dead.
As I speak your name into the chapel,
it sinks into the shadows and dissapates.
No other mind in this place carries your living memory,
or your dead name. Not even for the length of four syllables.
Remembering the living and the famous
is hard enough. The dead have no place among us.
And I am merely living.
Not worthy of special mention, certainly not famous.
But when I say your name, after five years,
it is like bringing a diamond out of the dark mine of my heart,
where you have lived in the crushing weight of my grief,
in the cherishing clutch of my memory.
Now, when I bring your name into this room,
saying this prayer for the dead, it bursts from my lips,
into the quiet air, like a bouquet thrown over my shoulder,
and no one tries to catch it.
But it never touches the ground,
because God takes it, and pulls it to himself;
Your name, your sweet name, glowing in the altar candles,
sweeping the cobwebs, ascending into heaven.
Scheme | AX BCDEFX XG XXBGXH XFCAIGG EGDXXA XXXXXX IH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111111010101010010010 11101 1111011101 111111001001010 11011111011 1101110 101011011010 10001110101 1111001111 0101001010010 110010010 111011111 10010001 110010101010 110110 101011010100 1110101 1111101010 11010101 110101110110100 111111010111100 01000100010 110101111011 0111010 11011010100110 1111111011 1111001011011111 111100101111 00100111100 1111110111 101110111111 0101011001110110 0111111 11101001 01111011101 1111110001010 10010100110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,700 |
Words | 346 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 6, 2, 6, 7, 6, 6, 2 |
Lines Amount | 37 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 165 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
About this poem
This poem, first published in the Anglican Theological Review Winter 2005, offers a reflection on the weight of grief embodied in a name.
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Written on February 27, 1995
Submitted on August 25, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
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"Prayers of the People" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/134818/prayers-of-the-people>.
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