Chained to a Post

Chained to a Post
by Patsy Anne Bickerstaff

The story goes,

a newcomer in Heaven asks

about a man chained to a post.

"One of those fool Virginians," Peter snorts,

"If we don't chain him, he'll go home."

He would go home to Richmond spring, dogwood blushing,

grandiflora buds like vessels of cream

set by the porcelain capitol,

St. John's quivering with Henry's echo,

Poe's ghost touching his mother's stone,

horseback heroes, corner flower-stands;

home to summer on rivers and ocean,

mossy-musty scented Tappahannock, Deltaville,

music-box bubblenotes along the Piankatank,

Tangier accent like sea-smooth glass,

sunrise gull-cries, surf-hymns;

home to Arlington nights, lightsparkle towers cloudglow high,

to October dancing Shenandoah Valley,

tossing apple-spangled gypsy shawls down the Blue Ridge,

over shoulders of white clapboard villages

laughing in goldglaze;

or Bruton Parish Christmas,

candleshine on snowfall in memory-corners,

newborn nation's carols, carrying promise

up long starhalls to forever.

Virginia permeates being: perfume of peanuts, tobacco,

tastes of Brunswick, Smithfield, Hanover,

song that remembers

the color of hands that built her,

clanging steelship giants, moving proud as duchesses,

shapes and textures of farmers' market, county fair.

O God, that chain

had better be strong.