Young Writers Society

this is your inheritance; do not dare leave this world with field-rocks in your pockets. plant your heart in every field, until the whole earth is bound in the roots of your veins. and when they steal that - we will steal the sky.

1. the only remaining-record for my great great grandmother's life is a short court document that states; 'the land stolen will never be her own' - life is not in the practice of giving back what it takes, and land has a way of becoming blood, and human flesh has a way of dying before we learn these things or realize we can fly. it is enough for me to know she tried, i will not tie her feathers to bitterness, i will not try to steal away soil in my shoes, or my hands, or my pockets, i will plant my garden in her honor and whisper to every straining tomato plant and geranium flower, 'this too is yours.'

2. the land killed my great grandfather before he was old enough to be old; though his skin was already weathered down in grooves of worry-lines, dynamite powder, and coal dust; and i always wonder if they were able to clean his fingernails before they buried him for the last time. if i saw him somewhere today, i would take out my nail-file and a bar of soap and a basin of well-water, and i would wash his hands until the grooves ran smooth. i would show him pictures of his son's and grandson's wrinkled faces, i would tell him they lived. i think of him when the soil clings to my own hands, and i promise him i will not track in soil in my home, even when nostalgia threatens to bury me too.

3. my grandfather farmed his whole life, with his whole life. one sun-baked plot of land split clean to seven brothers. some years the harvest was good, some years the seeds became rocks and gravel, and his daughters wandered the field harvesting stones. in the end it wasn't the sun that overturned the land inside out, it was the flood-waters. i never take rain for granted because of him. every drop in my cup, every river-bed, every sweat-soaked brow, i hear him saying 'the rain's coming strong tonight' - and i nod and believe i too am a prophet, and i warn my unborn children to not keep the field-stones in their pockets, in case the flood comes, in case the ground breaks, in case the land is stolen away - we will be light on our feet, when it is time to leave this earth, we will fly.