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Ora Pro Nobis
pray for us
The dead die when we living let them die;
We breathing clasp to hearts our breathless dead;
We pack them fresh-embalmed on icy beds.
In silent rooms they speak our names. They cry
To us: “Remember me! Remember me!”
Ah, Cissy, I remember you. Your eyes
Which last saw light at seventeen still lie
In me like jeweled cuts of sun-cut sea.
I dream your eyes, their baffled quiet grace;
Others forget, but I do not forget;
You prick my prayers, poor altars of regret;
My mind’s sharp eye calls back your sea-sun gaze.
__Pray all, I pray, who read these lines of song,
__For her whose eyes are gone when I am gone.
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Jeff Minick taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make The Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va. He writes for The Epoch Times and the Imaginative Conservative.
Memories of loved ones is the way of keeping them alive. Your message is well stated and received in this precious poem.
A very touching poem, and the repetition of words nicely mirrors the subject of memory.
As one of your loyal ET readers, Jeff, I also admire your prolific output there.
“You prick my prayers, poor altars of regret.” = I particularly like that line!
This is great, Jeff! Extremely moving, flawless in execution!
Very Edgar Allen Poe.
Nicely done, Jeff.
A beautiful poem, Jeff. Thank you for sharing it.
A beautiful concept, accompanied by yet another appropriate illustration chosen by Evan.
Still there are are those who take charge and come back when ever they choose. I think of my mother. who pops in and out of one dimension to another whenever she chooses! She always was a little fey but honestly, Mama, sometimes you scare me half to death !!
Dear Jeff, you’ve conveyed your feelings about the most heart-wrenching experience one can have with an effective and well-executed sonnet. Like Jeremiah, my favourite line is: You prick my prayers, poor altars of regret. Thank you.
A beautifully written and poignant poem that explores the effect of tragedy on the soul and (I think) ends with a gigantic question mark: does the past survive in memory only, vanishing with that memory? Yet the poetic voice asks the reader to pray, indicating that hope indeed does spring eternal. I never cease to be amazed at the vitality and versatility of the sonnet.
I love this take on our dear departed. It’s truly beautiful. I too especially appreciate this line: “You prick my prayers, poor altars of regret” – superb!
You prick my interest, but you haven’t quite closed the deal. Work harder at what you are trying to accomplish.
This sonnet is a marvelous accomplishment on several levels. It harks back to the apparently simple clarity of some Renaissance poets, that nonetheless includes imagery capable of carrying discourse into other dimensions (like Sally Cook’s mother). The opening imagery is contemporary to ourselves: “fresh-embalmed on icy beds in silent rooms.” There has never been such unconscionable delay, supported by chill technology, at keeping the breathless dead in temporary limbo away from their final resting places. Even mourners who don’t visit cold storage have to imagine loved ones so long stalled in it, and still crying not to be forgotten in those packed halls of death. The central and concluding image of eyes returns light-life to Cissy in beautiful contrasting scenes. The sun, the sea, the “baffled quiet grace” that gives a glimpse of a young girl’s face, the speaker’s dreams and prayers made holy as “altars,” lead up to the request for prayer that ties in the title and asks for the reader to spend a little breath here. Requiescat in pace. The couplet is a masterwork, extending the eternizing claim of so many earlier poets, who thought their lines alone could do the trick of insuring fame for the beloved. Jeff Minick remembers that she is beyond caring for fame–and didn’t that really mean fame for the poet anyway? She can still use prayers that he asks for her. His distinction is rather to be the one with custody of memory of her eyes. They will indeed be gone when his memory disappears in his own death, but may his request for prayers long benefit her. The title, asking for prayers for all the dead, will benefit him too when any reader takes thought and trouble to pray in the plural. Requiescant in pace.