Caroling Dusk/To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country

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Caroling Dusk (1927)
edited by Countee Cullen

To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country by Arna Bontemps

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Arna Bontemps4756825Caroling Dusk — To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country1927Countee Cullen

TO A YOUNG GIRL LEAVING THE HILL COUNTRY

The hills are wroth; the stones have scored you bitterlyBecause you looked upon the naked sunOblivious of them, because you did not seeThe trees you touched or mountains that you walked upon.

But there will come a day of darkness in the land,A day wherein remembered sun alone comes throughTo mark the hills; then perhaps you’ll understandJust how it was you drew from them and they from you.

For there will be a bent old woman in that dayWho, feeling something of this country in her bones,Will leave her house tapping with a stick, who will (they say)Come back to seek the girl she was in these familiar stones.