Today’s Poem of the Day, “Inheritance,” by the contemporary formalist poet Jean L. Kreiling (b. 1955), sketches a taut, poignant narrative in the fourteen lines of a Shakespearean sonnet. Three quatrains, rhymed ababcdcdefef, sketch the story’s rising action: a ring passed down to the speaker’s sister is a source of friction, albeit joking, and an occasion of quiet envy. The closing couplet delivers a sobering insight: What, when we covet our neighbor’s goods, are we really asking for? 
 
The author of three books of poetry, “Shared History,” “Arts and Letters and Love,” and “The Truth in Dissonance,” Ms. Kreiling lives on the Massachusetts coast. She is Professor Emerita of Music at Bridgewater State University and a longtime member of the Powow River Poets writing group, founded by Rhina P. Espaillat. Her poems have appeared widely in journals online and off, as have her academic essays on the relation between poetry and music.  

Inheritance 
by Jean L. Kreiling 
 
             for Susan  
 
It was, at first, my mother’s mother’s ring,  
and then somehow it skipped a generation,  
and was my sister’s. Subtly shimmering,  
it was a delicate, old-world creation  
that I thought would have looked good on my hand:  
three tiny diamond chips set in a small  
etched-silver oblong on a golden band.  
Although we laughed about it, I recall  
my jealousy; that heirloom was the one  
I’d coveted — a wish I didn’t hide —  
but her slim finger wore it well. In fun,  
she said she’d leave it to me when she died.  
I wear it every day now, and I guess 
there’s nothing that I’ve ever wanted less. 

___________________________________________ 

With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.