Inheritance

© 1990 J.B. Goodenough

 

From her book, Milking in November.  Judy was a poet who captured the hard, clear language of the New England landscape with a "fierce economy." She was a good musician too, and wife, mother and friend.

 

 

No rum-money

Slave-money

Whale-money

My grandfathers

Were landlubbers all

 

They left me

A tilted house

A broken-backed barn

And six fields

Hung on the hill

 

Fifty years

I thought I was poor

But I learned this:

Good dirt

Is hard to come by

 

 

 

The Inheritance is read on the album In Concert