The Inheritance - Avril Newey
In these poems, Avril draws together her personal images of the town where her family has lived for at least four hundred years, and in doing so, identifies that unrecognised inheritance of affection and common ritual which all of us can choose to pass on to our children and grandchildren.
Currently out of print.
Currently out of print.
the gift
Her grandfather first heard
it. That spring day
he walked the horse
to the Chase field to plough:
he was eleven years old.
When she was eight
he took her out alone
along the lane and
through the five-barred gate,
then raised a finger
so that she would stop
the constant chatter
that her world deserved,
and waited. Satisfied,
he saw her turn her head
to catch that sound
which all his life had lain
inside the listening of his eyes.
He was a careful man
in heart and pocket:
nothing lent
or borrowed,
nothing said.
That gift, his testament.
© Avril Newey. 1983
it. That spring day
he walked the horse
to the Chase field to plough:
he was eleven years old.
When she was eight
he took her out alone
along the lane and
through the five-barred gate,
then raised a finger
so that she would stop
the constant chatter
that her world deserved,
and waited. Satisfied,
he saw her turn her head
to catch that sound
which all his life had lain
inside the listening of his eyes.
He was a careful man
in heart and pocket:
nothing lent
or borrowed,
nothing said.
That gift, his testament.
© Avril Newey. 1983
