Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Makar – National Poet
      • Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine
      • A Woman’s A Woman
      • The story of the Makar – National Poet of Scotland
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Spiorad an Àite
      Spirit of Place
    • The Trysting Thorns
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
      • Poetry Commissions: Walter Scott 250
        Coimiseanan Bàrdachd: Walter Scott 250
      • Poetry Ambassadors 2021
    • Poetry Ambassadors 2020
    • Posters
    • Podcasts
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Designing sensory poetry activities
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Entropie Books
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Jobs
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • Our projects
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Miriam Nash
  • >
  • Prayer for My Father as a Child
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Prayer for My Father as a Child

Miriam Nash

In the house where he sleeps
let my ears
be the leaves at the window.

Let the bulbs of the lamps
be my eyes
on the animal street.

Let the shadows that harbour
my unborn body
stir when harm is stirring.

I’ll sleep in the drawer
with the knives.
I’ll turn in the locks.


Miriam Nash

from All the Prayers in the House (Heham: Bloodaxe, 2017)
Reproduced with the permission of the author.

Tags:

Best Scottish Poems 2017 English fathers Highlands & Islands Love metaphor prayers

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2017. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2017 was Roddy Woomble.

Author’s note:

I started writing this poem in Yonkers, New York, after the flat I was living in got broken into. In the nights afterwards, I was hyper-aware of sounds, lights and shadows. That’s where the images in the poem came from, along with the form of the prayer with its repetitions and appeal for protection. Much later, when I was assembling my collection, All the Prayers in the House, the poem became a prayer for someone else’s safety – my father’s before I was born. The feeling of danger and alertness I had experienced after the break-in became a vessel for exploring the wish to protect those we love in impossible ways.

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Best Scottish Poems 2017

edited by Roddy Woomble
Find out more

Miriam Nash

Miriam Nash was born in Inverness and spent her early years on the West coast island of Erraid. Her pamphlet Small Change was published by flipped eye in 2013; she received an Eric Gregory award in 2015. In 2016,...
More about Miriam Nash

Podcasts

Our audio programme of poets, poems and news for you to listen to.
Listen Now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library