Inheritance
INHERITANCE
That there were people.
That they carved life out
of other people and woods.
That we are their successors.
That ideas and towns were bent
together like hot ingots
rolled out and hammered hard.
That not just blood
but a sea of bent backs
made them our testators
and us their spoor
in our vast land
now fenced in, no less lost,
no less hopeful.
That we are the offspring
of savage nobles and sweet souls.
That we pray, or something like it,
then grope toward what works.
We seekers, so often we long
to breathe the thin air
of unfear and allshare.
* first published in Still: The Journal (Winner of the 2017 Poetry Prize)