Psalm 23 (for Anna Christina Bauer Burton, 1872 - 1956)

My grandmother's favorite psalm.
I had forgotten.
Green pastures, quiet ponds, placid sheep:
the Ohio farm.

It came to me one morning
after troubled sleep
as if she herself were speaking,

as if she
were saying calm down
and eat my mush.

She was opposed to rushing
in grief or pain,
a woman plain,
tall and unadorned as the steadfast trees.

She was pleased
when I apprenticed as a meatcutter.
Butchers eat,
even in depressions,
she told me.