My Inheritance

This bird statue has flown down the generations
and has landed at my doorstep.
I open the door and pick it up and it is hard
with rock eyes darker than the night sky.

I slowly walk to my bedroom,
holding this fragile object and sit it down on my windowsill,
waiting for it to fly to freedom.
“Go,” I whisper to it.
“Fly.”
It looks back at me and eventually
it flies to the next generation.

“I shall see you again,”
I whisper under my breath
and then I leave the room.
From this day on I shall remember that
this
is my inheritance.

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This poem was awarded the REX Primary Prize for Poetry Object 2018

Judge's notes:
‘My Inheritance’ looks to the past in order to imagine the present. The poet’s wise and gracious voice speaks of an
understanding of intergenerational flow and the complexities and sometimes-difficulties of legacy. This wide lens, of witnessing something that has ‘flown down the generations’, brings a remarkable groundedness.
Language is clean, direct and sharp. Imagery (for example, the unusual ‘rock eyes’) is spaced around the page with an impressive understanding of rhythm – line breaks and enjambment are used to give pause and encourage flow in a way that is synergistic with meaning.

~ Red Room Poetry Team
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