Pack Up Virginia

                                 for a friend who joined the Peace Corps

By Sibbie O'Sullivan

The dogwoods are blooming in Kenya

and the land is settling about its shoulders

the soft shawl of evening

Do you see the stars?

Are they the ones you saw

from your grandmother's window, 

the ones you got sleepy to?

And in your room

you pressed your clean face to the floorgate

and listened to the old voices

drift up the house

and the yellow light of the kitchen

slanted into the hall

like a door you knew

would always be opened.

The old voices are with you now.

Their song drifts down from the stars

yellow and white

it sparkles in the dark moan of the river

and calls to you

in the fields of daylight.

The sun has opened a door in the sky

and your feet,

quick with new new soil,

move gracefully from one room

to the next

in the big house.

*   *   *   *   *

Source: Ethos (Spring 1982)