Hi David
The first two parts muse on liturgy and how that old-fashioned language still works its magic and how the mind wanders in the course of repeated listenings and not-listenings. The last part is more mysterious but Carl’s comment, that it sounds like a promise to a missed child, now makes it click for me. I do remember some time ago you wrote a sort of elegy to a child buried near Wells on the Norfolk coast. That reading does add a wistful, painful twist. (But it does raise other questions eg would a child be driving cattle home at night?) Either way it capture how religious ritual still rubs us in tender places when we are trying to make sense of the world.
I wasn’t entirely sure about the word “tranquiliser” (L3). It has strong, usually bad, medical connotations, whereas you seem to be describing the familiar words more approvingly as a sort of balm. But maybe you wanted a little ambiguity to begin with.
Cheers
Joe
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