By Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
www.patriciajabbehwesley.net

At Point Loma, a student may dip a toe or two in
the ocean, in between classrooms and teachers, in

between falling in and out of love, between the pages
of a book’s silence. On a fast day, the windy air, misty,

salty, so much beauty for the eyes, and I’d say, what a life!
In my small, Pennsylvania town, old railroad tracks

still wind their way around Altoona, old steel country,
rusting away from lack of use, the green mountains,

rising like clumps of dirt mounds. Altoona, where
some will never understand how a student can learn

anything sitting on a beach. But in San Diego, the
hotel suite, where my kind hosts have lavished this

undeserving luxury upon me, a suite that hangs over
the bay, the lovely balcony frightens me though.

What if I slip and fall into this old bay where a man
rises out of his boat at dawn as if he were a fish.

His wheelbarrow, squeaking with things he is hauling
on to his boat on the bay. There are so many boats,

the water has no air to breathe; the air has no water
to drink. There is so much in this life to live for,

and yet my boat neighbors have chosen to live on
the water, not on the shoreline, on the sand, or on

the bare cliffs where Point Loma University, so
blessed, sits along the peaceful shoreline as if waiting

for God. This is the sort of place that follows
the traveler around forever, like the old stories Iyeeh

told me in Dolokeh. I am not one to fall in love
with a place so easily, but somehow, I cannot help

smiling at these palms, these foliage, these people,
and this wind that takes me way back home where

these shrubberies also grow wild in Monrovia.
I wonder what was on God’s mind, San Diego, when

he made you? This sort of place makes my soul cry
for that other shoreline so far away, where home sits

by the sea, waiting, too, where the ocean is wild and hot.

The LJML department and Cultural Events Series were host to a remarkable Christian African poet in November of 2006, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley.  A native of Liberia, she came to the US during the Liberian civil war and now teaches at Penn State Altoona Campus. She spoke in three classes, at a luncheon with faculty, at a tea, and at the evening reading event. Patricia was so impressed with her visit to PLNU, both her time spent with students and faculty, and the way the campus made her feel homesick for the Liberian coast.  She wrote this poem in reflection of her visit to the campus.