(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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