(Thomas Kinto/Unsplash)

To regather will, I embrace
my tin soul with timorous joy.
A new heaven and a new earth

have eclipsed the old, and the force
of fresh grace unsettles the world.
To regather will, I embrace

unstable, staggering light;
it reshapes the dusk and unshrouds
the new heaven and the new earth. 

As nerves ignite in dead limbs, 
my vision dims and I rise
to regather will. I embrace

the unreconciled and the lost,
then praise in miscarried words
this new heaven and this new earth.

I would shout in tongues in the streets,
yet I stammer, straining for grace
to regather. Will I embrace
my new Heaven and my new Earth?

A. M. Juster’s tenth book of original and translated poetry is Wonder and Wrath (Paul Dry Books, 2020); W. W. Norton will publish his translation of Petrarch’s Canzoniere in 2023. His work has appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, and Hudson Review, and he has won a number of awards, including the Richard Wilbur Award. For his career in public service he has received two honorary degrees and the Alzheimer’s Association’s Humanitarian of the Year Award.

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Published in the February 2021 issue: View Contents
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