Poem Ending With a Phrase From the Psalms

Here where loss spins the hickory’s dry leaves,

rolls miles under wheels, and bleaches reeds

that shone wine-red, I invoke a rose

still rising like a choir, past its prime

on a spindly bush that bore scarce blooms,

as I wake to hear a jay screech like a gate

swung open, and see your hand enfolding mine

on linen: teach us to number our days.

*

From “Hammer and Blaze: A Gathering of Contemporary American Poets,” edited by Ellen Bryant Voigt and Heather McHugh (The University of Georgia Press: 348 pp., $24.95).