Emily Dickinson

We Pray to Heaven

poem 489

We Pray to Heaven - meaning Summary

Prayer Versus Certainty

Dickinson questions how people talk about Heaven and death, exposing social habit of narrating where and when souls "fled." The poem argues Heaven is not a literal place with geography but a condition or state—an inward endowment rather than a location. It challenges attempts to pin down Divine presence with spatial language, suggesting instead an omnipresent, non‑local sense of afterlife that resists neighborhood gossip and precise coordinates.

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We pray to Heaven We prate of Heaven Relate when Neighbors die At what o’clock to heaven they fled Who saw them Wherefore fly? Is Heaven a Place a Sky a Tree? Location’s narrow way is for Ourselves Unto the Dead There’s no Geography But State Endowal Focus Where&m dash;Omnipresence fly?

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