In poems that range from New England to the Southwest, Without My Asking, takes its cue from Psalms 90's petition--"teach us to number our days." That biblical sense of limits--of what we can know and not know--and, ultimately, the mystery of before and after that encloses our existence is the center around which these poems turn, both seasonally and from day-to-day. In poems that attend to the events of our lives--from the deaths of parents to hummingbirds at a bird feeder--these poems work to utter "Yes" to all that happens, that "peculiar affirmative" that recognizes, as Elizabeth Bishop says, "Life's like that . . . also death.