Inheritance

Inheritance

Abigail Carroll

Whitefield, New Hampshire

Though I have never known why mountains
made me room, the clean of balsam

afternoon lifted me like a ladling till even
shivering was gift. Under illegible moon,

tremolo of loon (or memory of loon)
languaged thick dark, and my throat

widened. I am learning to stop, take stock
when branches sieve what’s left of winter light,

when summer damp becomes a room. Let me
welcome the consolation of moss. I studied

a pond till the otter broke into the low noon
of my life, eyes black, slick fur shining.

---

Abigail Carroll
Poet & Author

Abigail is the author of three poetry collections: Cup My Days like Water, Habitation of Wonder, and A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-Day Pilgrim. Her poems have been anthologized in How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope as well as in Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide. Her work of nonfiction, Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal, was a finalist for the Zócolo Public Square Book Prize. She lives and writes in Vermont.

Photography by Habila G.