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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781620456941 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Turner Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 10/26/1998 |
| Edition description: | Reissue |
| Pages: | 194 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d) |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1 Lots of people, including myself, are longing for impossibilities.
I write about the things my baby sister LaVerne and I used to reminisce about together as a way of keeping her close to me. I used to do all her fighting for her. She brought out the protector in me. She knew she could always count on me to be there for her at crunch time, and I was, too. Except for the last time I heard her call my name. I heard it coming all the way from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, but at the time I didn't believe calls for help could come through the air and not on the telephone. Besides, I knew I would be going to Vegas in another ten days. I let that word, "tomorrow," and thoughts of "later" beckon me instead. Ten days later she had died, and I didn't get to embrace her or say good-bye when I could have.
I used to tease LaVerne about how much more of our childhood she remembered than I did. The South. Harlem. Of course, I remember some things perfectly, like one particular woman, a retired teacher, who used to visit our mother. Even her laughter seemed sad. My mother rented rooms in our spacious apartment up on Sugar Hill, mostly to domestics. They lived with us a long time and only came home on Thursdays, every other Sunday, and on their one week vacation during the year.
Life exacts a high toll, sometimes all at once, and sometimes bit by bit.
Remembrance
I have a younger sister who remembers everything. I
believe she even remembers being born- what it
was like inside and so forth.
Her memories have helped to inform me of who
I am and why I feel the way I do about certain
things. Take poverty, for example. She said that when
I was a baby I was put to bed in a dresser drawer be-cause
the folks who kept me during a parental shift
of emphasis were very poor and couldn't afford a
crib. So, poverty came to mean a gasping for breath
in darkness, a claustrophobic condition where you
could smother to death unless you were big enough
and strong enough to kick the drawers open.
Every summer, my mother used to take us to
Chester, South Carolina, to visit her people. I have
some of my own memories about that time. The
South came to mean thick milk, bitter greens, great
big ol' biscuits, and oh such sweet peaches, flies, heat,
quilting with my grandma, hugging my bearded
grandfather who smelled of tobacco and horses and
sweat. It was a good smell.
Back then, I thought there was no such thing as
ugly white people and I thought all mean people
looked like conductors. My sister says I once kicked
a conductor who got our mother upset and threatened
to put us off the train when she couldn't find
the pass we traveled on. I thought the boogeyman
wore white sheets and all colored people were good
and sang spirituals. And when something bad happened,
they grunted and said, "Humph! Ah Lord!"
And when they died they got hung on trees.
My sister asks sometimes, "Remember those
horsehair mattresses we slept on and how we'd bury
our faces in the pillows because that coarse linen
smelled so fresh?" I really do remember the sound
of the screen door banging and all the bustling
around and excitement when it came time for us to
leave and looking forward to the heavy lunch
Grandma had packed for us to eat on the train.
Then there were my cousins, Sipp and Jay. Sipp's
name was really Esther. But big Jay would always
be clowning around. He used to make us pretty
rings out of peach pits. He'd put a bead in the middle
of it and he'd say, "See that. That's a diamond.
Don't tell nobody I never gave you nothing." He
had one joke he'd tell. I don't remember what it
was but the punchline was, "Niggers just ain't no
good."
One time, my brother Edward showed him his
medals that he'd won in school for running and
jumping and Jay said, "I bet you stole 'em. I bet the
only medals you ever won were for running to the
table and jumping in the bed."
And when it came time for us to get on the
wagon and head out for the train depot, he and
Edward would chuck rocks at each other until
somebody would tell them to stop.
South was where almost everybody we knew
came from. South was where you went to visit in
the summertime or brought people away from who
were in trouble. When somebody died, you took
the body back home, down South. South was where
my mother had taught school. South was where colored
people had a lot of land that peanuts and
cotton sucked dry. They couldn't hold on to it, so
they just walked off and left it; or there was land
where the old folks got killed and somebody took it.
South was where chickens came from and where you
could see pigs and ride horses, milk cows. Later South
was stories about swamps and snakes and alligators
and walking in ditches so white folks could pass,
and South was about running away. It was Billie
Holiday singing, "Southern trees bear a strange
fruit." South was where that same cousin Jay came
back home from the war, sat on the edge of his bed
in his uniform, put a pistol in his mouth and blew
his brains out. "Humph! Ah Lord!"
South was a scary place where skeletons and
ghosts cracked pecans in the night. It was a warm,
loving/ hating, sensuous, personal, personal place.
Whenever I hear somebody say, "I'm from the
South," it sounds like a confession.
Oh yes, my sister remembers a lot and she helps
me remember some things too. I told her she's the
one in the family that ought to be a writer. I believe
she could fill a book from just memories.
Three Finger Freddie
Being black in the U. S. of A. can be especially hard
on some people. Three Finger Peg Leg One Eye
Hook Freddie was one of those people. As you may
guess from his accumulation of names, the vicissitudes
of blackness had chopped him up pretty bad.
None of his friends and few of his family ever
thought he'd live long. I know I didn't, but he is
still hanging in there.
My name is Axel, the closest thing to Freddie's
best friend, you might say. Perhaps one reason we
got so close is-- well, I'm an insignificant-looking
person, and Freddie is so big and black and important
looking. Opposites attracting and all that.
Now Freddie never would have been good-looking,
but his present condition made him look downright
scary and hard for somebody to think about hiring.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
You see, he got the name of Three Finger when
he was still a boy. One day after regular school
hours, he was experimenting around in the chemistry
room when the custodian opened the door and
startled him by yelling, "What the hell you doing
in there, nigger?"
Freddie dropped the concoction he'd been working
on, which exploded and blew off two of his fingers.
On top of that, he hurt his head as he fell to
the floor. He remained in a coma for two days.
When he came to, the first thing he said was, "I am
not a nigger. I ain't a nigger. I ain't."
Then he told his momma and me what happened.
Now we believe that it was being called a
nigger like that, that was at the root of the robbery
of Freddie bit by bit and brought on his present
predicament. The word became like a red flag to a
bull. He just naturally went crazy anytime some-body
called him a nigger-- especially somebody
white. It stands to reason that that kind of sensitivity
can be costly. Even though, over the years,
Freddie inflicted a lot of punishment on a lot of
people, he himself suffered the loss of some pretty
important parts.
Alright. The two fingers he lost were on the left
hand. Then he lost all of his right hand in an ax
fight he had with a guard on the chain gang. I never
did get all the details on the stick fight he had with
some bruiser in Louisiana where he lost his left eye.
He lost a leg when a bus got in his way as he was
crossing the road to deal with another white "brother"
who had said, "Come on over here a minute, nigger,
please. I got something I want you to help me with."
His momma and I had warned him over and
over: "You can not let ignorant people rile you up
like this. You can't keep a-gettin' mad every time
some fool-- no matter what they color-- gets it in
his head to call you a nigger. Keep on like this and
you will lose your behind."
I said, "Define yourself. You know who you are."
"He's not been himself since that explosion in
high school," his momma said.
"I am not a nigger. I ain't a nigger. I ain't," the
by now Three Finger Peg Leg, etc., Freddie would
protest over and over, sitting with his face in some
corner whenever his spirits got real low.
Now, it's not so easy for a grown black man to
get a job even when he has all his parts and all his
faculties. An off-and-on twenty-year prison record
doesn't help much either. So, naturally, after his
momma passed, the question of where he was gonna
get the money to survive began to worry him. Even
before the loss of his various parts, he had been particular
about what kind of work he wanted to do.
For example, he didn't want to be a bouncer.
"Just because I'm big and black and strong, I
don't want to get paid for knocking people around,"
he said.
But the circumstances of how life had . . . intercoursed
him up, mitigated against his having many
choices.
Fortune had been kinder to me, however, who
learned early, thank God, how to put the fact of my
blackness in a more realistic, business perspective. I
now owned a combination restaurant-club in a good
location. Every now and then, Freddie would come
by, before things got underway in the evening, and
sit down and play a game of checkers with himself,
using his three fingers to move the red checkers and
the hook he had for a right hand to move the black.
The place was filling up pretty good this particular
night and I really wanted Freddie to go home.
But he kept steady pushing those checkers and arguing
with himself from time to time, "I am not a
nigger. I ain't a nigger. I ain't."
The combo that entertained starting with the
cocktail hour took a break, and I saw Freddie slowly
get up. I thought he was fixing to leave or going
over to talk to the musicians, so I wasn't prepared
for what happened. Freddie hop-walked over to the
little stage and sat down at the piano. With the
three fingers, he began to play a rhythm in the bass
that made everybody in the place turn around. Then
he'd slide that hook, or hop it, all over the treble
while he beat out another rhythm on the floor with
the peg. After a while, it seemed that the hook got
caught in some high notes and a sound came out
like a wail. It reminded me of Coltrane, the way he
could hammer a phrase that conjured up colors and
gave vibrations concrete form in midair. The customers
stopped eating, drinking, and talking and
just listened. Then, all of a sudden, they stood up
and shouted and clapped. I even saw some of them
crying. From time to time, Freddie would grunt
and mumble under his breath. I knew what he was
saying.
Later that night, Freddie started in again and
the people got up and danced like they were under a
spell and there was no tomorrow. I wondered if
they'd ever be going home. I don't know where
Freddie learned to play piano like that. Maybe he
picked it up in the pen. Sounds crazy to me, but he
says it has a lot to do with remembering sounds and
how they feel. Playing checkers helps too, he told
me. Now you figure that one.
Since that night, nine years ago now, I've opened
two more clubs. He works all three places, and we
call them "Three Finger Freddie's" since Freddie
and I are partners now. The man is hard on pianos,
though, and I have had to put special wood on the
floors to keep Freddie from pushing them in with
that peg.
He stopped mumbling to himself about five
years ago. I do notice, though, that sometimes his
good eye fills up and spills over whenever he's playing
something quiet and sweet. Looks like he's got-ten
over that word "nigger," too, because no more
parts are missing that I know of. No more parts,
that is, since the brawl about five years ago when he
got both his eardrums broke and lost his power to
hear.
While Waiting
"Someday he'll come along-- that man I love,
And he'll be big and strong--"
I need to hear
Songs that I can sing
Words I can remember
Melodies that haunt
Sounds that sustain me
While waiting for that man I love
(Who I haven't even met yet)
To come get me on his fine black steed
And take me away
Gently intent on the passion
With love deed
Or he can just drive on up in his raggedy old car
Or come walkin'
I'll have his supper ready and
Leave the door ajar.
Because the wind is howling, honey,
And the coal is low.
But he better hurry up and get here
'Cause I ain't gonna wait forever.
"Someday he'll come along. That man I love--"
Aunt Zurletha
Aunt Zurletha had pretty red hair, light brown
eyes, and blue-black skin. A circle of rouge was on
each cheek. The shiny red lipstick on her full mouth
matched her fingernail polish which matched her
toenail polish. Usually, she wore earrings that looked
like diamonds that matched the three rings she always
wore.
My brother William said she looked like a witch,
which made me wonder when and where he had
ever seen a witch. My other brother, Curtis, said she
looked pathetic. "Pathetic" was his new word that
year. Everything was "pathetic." My father, Hosea,
said she looked like a hustler. "Zurletha the Zero,"
he used to say. I thought she was pretty, especially
when she smiled. Her teeth were even, and so white.
Mama used to say, "You can just quit so much
talk about Zurletha. She's the only roomer that pays
her rent in advance."
I heard her say to Hosea one night, "Who could
we turn to when we had that fire in the shop and
folks suing you for their clothes and the insurance
company practically blaming you for starting your
own fire and all the fires in Harlem for the last ten
years? Who in this world could we turn to? Tell me.
We would have starved to death but for Zurletha.
No, I will not let you put her out."
"Now hold on, Mat. Gratitude is a thing you
have got to understand. I am grateful- grateful to
God who made it possible for me not to go under.
That woman was just God's instrument, God's way
of showing men"
"You just mad because you can't get her to that
church of yours."
"Mat, the woman needs a church home. She
needs something more in her life besides those white
folks she works for. She needs to find God."
"Not in that raggedy little broken-down store-front,
Hosea. You know how she likes pretty things."
"That is precisely what worries me, Mat. That
is precisely why I want her out of here. Take Baby-
she practically worships her. And if I catch her one
more time messing around in that woman's room-"
"Zurletha doesn't mind. She told me Baby's just
having a little fun," Mama said.
"A little fun can leave you dragging a lifetime
load. I've seen too much, Mat. I know what I'm
talking about."
"Alright, Hosea-- that's how you feel, we can
keep Baby out of there."
"Playing with them beads and that glass junk
she calls jewelry. Rubbing up against those rabbits
she's got hanging on the door-"
"They are not rabbits, and you know it. Mink,
that's what it is. A mink coat, and she's also got a
fox stole."
"Don't care if it's dog. I want Baby's mind
steady on her books and her grades and on what she
is going to do with her life."
"Alright, alright, Hosea. Stop preaching at me.
Put that light out now. Go on to sleep."
"Keep that door locked when Zurletha's not in
there, y'hear."
I didn't understand my father sometimes. Aunt
Zurletha- and he made us call her "Aunt"- had
been living with us on her days off for as long as I
can remember. She didn't want us to call her Miss
Battles. And Hosea wouldn't let us say just "Zurletha."
The people she worked for called her "Zurlie."
I think that's the only thing she didn't like-
"Zurlie" this and "Zurlie" that for forty years.
She was always giving us something. Gave Curtis
his own radio. Gave William a microscope. My last
birthday, last August, she gave me a guitar. You
should've heard her play the guitar. We'd come
home from Sunday school and hear her singing and
stomping her foot. Made us want to dance. If Hosea
came home to eat before going back to church, she'd
stop. Soon as he left, though, she'd open her door,
and we'd all go in, me first.
She had so many beautiful things. Real crystal
glasses that she could tap with her fingernail and
make sounds like music. There wasn't too much
room to walk, so mostly I sat on her big brass bed.
And she'd let me play with the silver candlesticks or
try on the jewelry and hats. She had such pretty
suitcases, too. Since the guitar, though, whenever
she came home, she'd show me how to play different
chords. We'd practice very quietly.
One time she took us to the beach on the subway.
Hosea was in Washington, and Mama had
promised us we could go. It was still dark when I
heard her in the kitchen. I got up and she let me
help her pack this big straw basket with all kinds of
food she had brought with her the night before.
William and Curtis carried the blankets. She carried
the basket. I had Curtis's radio. It was a beautiful
day, and we had such a good time, too, even Curtis
with his smart-alecky self.
Aunt Zurletha had on a silky blue-and-green
bathing suit and some kind of rubber sandals that
had lots of straps and curved heels with big holes
through them and her pretty red hair was tied in
a ponytail and, as always, she had on her jewelry.
William and Curtis were whispering behind her
back and making fun, saying she looked like a cow-pig.
I think she must have heard them talking about
her bunion sticking out of her strappy sandals, even
though she was laughing and shaking her shoulders
to the music on Curtis's radio as she set up the umbrella
and opened the blankets. Later, when me and
Curtis and William came out of the water, she had
the lunch all set out and was stretched out reading
True Love magazine. The sun was bouncing off her
bracelet as I reached over and started twisting it
around her arm. She took it off and said, "Here, you
can wear it for a while." I put it on my arm and ran
out from under the umbrella and started pretending
I was a rich lady. William said, "You think you
something, huh? She probably stole it." This time I
know she heard because just before we started to
eat, she took the bracelet off my arm.
"You always have such pretty things, Aunt
Zurletha," I said.
And she said, "Ought to. I've been working
mighty hard for a lotta years. Then, too, my people <
buy men or give men a lot of stuff. Especially when
the children were small. We traveled all over then."
"They must be some rich people, man," Curtis
said.
"Rich? They got money's mama," Aunt Zurletha
said.
"What does money's mama look like, and who's
the daddy?" William asked.
Zurletha laughed and took a dainty little bite of
one of the sandwiches.
"They probably stole all that money," William
said. "Hosea says that rich folks are thieves."
"Not my people," said Zurletha. "My people are
just plain smart. And white, too, you know?"
I thought William sounded jealous, and mean,
too.
"And how come they didn't give you some of
that money instead of all that other junk?"
Aunt Zurletha didn't even seem mad.
"It's not junk, William. They give me expensive
things. Years ago, too, when I wanted to bake pies
to sell, they were going to set me up a place."
"What happened, Aunt Zurletha?" I asked.
Then she told us how her lady got pregnant
again and didn't want her to leave, and how they
kept promising to set up the pie place but never
did, what with all the traveling and more babies
coming; then, being in charge of opening all the
different houses; and with her people getting sick
and dying one right after the other; and how the
children not wanting her to leave, she just finally
got out of the notion of a pie place.
"Why you never got married, Aunt Zurletha?"
Curtis asked.
"One time I was gonna get married-- this was
before you children were even thought of. But
again, something came up with my people, and we
stayed in Europe. I should say we stayed all over
Europe for a year. And when I came back, lo and
behold, he had married somebody else. Never will
forget. Said it came to him that I was already
married-- married to a damn job, was the way he
put it."
Sometimes I could just ball up my fist and hit
William in the mouth.
"O-o-o, you should have quit that job, Aunt
Zurletha, and married what's-his-name."
"Frank. His name was Frank." Aunt Zurletha
looked sad for a second. Then she leaned over and
started cutting the cake. "Then I wouldn't have you
for my kids," she said.
Curtis nudged William and pointed at the
kinky gray hair sticking out from under the red
wig. Aunt Zurletha must have eyes all around her
head, just like Mama. She fixed the wig, so the gray
didn't show. And I thought it was strange- just at
that moment that song "Darling I Am Growing
Old" came on the radio. Then Aunt Zurletha started
singing, and doing a little dance on her tiptoes, as
she passed out the cake.
I wish I could remember more about Aunt Zurletha,
but she was never really home that much. I
think often about her last summer with us, though.
Our for-real aunt, Marie, was a nurse, and she had
arranged for us to go to a summer camp for two
weeks. Hosea and Mama just had to get our clothes
ready- that's all. We didn't even think about Aunt
Zurletha, we were having such a good time. And
Mama and Hosea didn't tell us in their letter that
she had been in the hospital. We didn't find out
until they picked us up at the bus terminal on the
way home. I was so ashamed that we hadn't thought
about her. I could have drawn her a funny get-well
card.
After camp, first thing, I knocked on her door
and went in before she said come in. All her beautiful
stuff was packed in boxes and piled on top of the
radiator, and beside the window, under the bed-
everywhere. It looked like she was planning to move.
Everything looked gray, except for the afternoon sun
against the window shade. A sweet-smelling spray
mingled with the odor of- something like when
Hosea found a dead mouse that had gotten caught
in the little space between the stove and the sink.
I had never seen Aunt Zurletha without the wig and
without the red lipstick and the beautiful earrings.
Her black, black face was lying on the white, white
pillow. It looked smooth like wax. Her hair was
cornrowed, ending in two thin braids, and almost
gone in the front and on the sides where the wig use
to be. It seemed like she stayed that way for the rest
of the summer.
She didn't want us children to come into her
room, so I would sit on the little rug outside her
door and play some of the things she had showed
me on the guitar. Mama would bring food. Hosea
used to say, "It's a shame. Why didn't she tell somebody
she was so sick?"
Mama said, "Guess she didn't want to worry us.
She complained one or two times, but she told me
she just didn't have the time to go sit in some doctor's
office."
That fall, they took her away to the hospital
again. And one day while I was in school, Aunt Zurletha
died. When I came home, the room was empty.
All the boxes, the brass bed, the furs, the lamps, and
the glasses, the china ornaments-- everything, gone.
"It just so happened, Baby," Mama said, "the
people she sold all her things to came today to pick
them up."
A bottle of fingernail polish was on the window-sill.
It was hard to open. I don't know why, but I
started painting my thumbnail. Then I found myself
kneeling on the floor, with my head on the windowsill,
crying. Crying like I couldn't stop. And the
polish spilled all over my middy blouse. Luckily I
didn't spill it all. There was a little left, and I
promised myself not to ever use it, because it was all
I had to remember Aunt Zurletha by.
"Nail polish? That's not what she left you,
Baby," Mama said. "She left us all her cash money.
She left a will. Enough for each of you to go one
year in college."
"I'm hoping they will get scholarships," Hosea
said.
"Well, we can see to that when the time comes."
Mama started crying.
"Aw, come on now, Mat, sweetheart," Hosea
said. "You know Zurletha wanted to go. See how
she planned everything. Too bad, though, she never
planned to get with God."
What Hosea said made me scream at him, "Yeah,
but she will. And when she does, I hope she'll have
on her red wig, and her rouge, and her fingernail
polish, with toes to match and all her jewelry, and
kiss God with her greasy lipstick on. I bet He'll just
hug and kiss her back, and tell her how beautiful
she is."
Daddy just looked at me a long time after that.
Then he walked across the room and put his arms
around me. I couldn't remember the last time he
did that. He said, "Come on now. Crying won't
bring her back, Baby. If crying would bring her
back, maybe I'd cry along with you. Won't find
another roomer who--" He went over to Mama,
took her by the shoulders, and shook her a little bit
before he hugged her and said, "She got to be part
of this family, Mat. She really did. We're going to
miss her alright. All of us."
That day I felt something that I'd been afraid of
all my life tumble down inside my father and he became
a gentler man. And from that day, whenever I
think about Aunt Zurletha, I hear the music of crystal
glasses as they touch tingling around me and I
feel happy.
Bag Lady
She of middle years who
Hard-hurdled handicaps who
Had attained who
Selected from choice
Solicitations who
Flicked specks from
Pearled precise black with
Laquered nails
Was seen to
Shoulder hoist
Huge crate of
Worldly treasures
Stumble, reel, abandon
Then naked
Move on out
Into the
Thrashing sea.
Table of Contents
SOUNDS IN THE DARKNESS.Remembrance.
Three Finger Freddie.
While Waiting.
Aunt Zurletha.
Bag Lady.
LET'S TALK ABOUT LOVE.
I Just Couldn't.
Evening Lady Lament.
A Real True Love Story.
Ode to O.D.
I Am Somebody.
FALLING THROUGH MY ARMS.
The Mighty Gents.
Go On.
Owed to a Funny Man.
Tupac.
MOSTLY LAUGHING.
Humpty Dumpty.
Compare.
Some People!
Shoe Lady #1.
Shoe Lady #2.
Shoe Lady #3.
Jack and Jill.
To Pig or Not to Pig.
Honkies Is a Blip!
TRIBUTES.
For James Baldwin.
Elders and Partisans.
For Roger Furman.
The Photographer.
George Houston Bass.
Lionel Notes.
Mamie Phipps Clark.
All That Love.
Toni Cade Bambara.
Thinking about Carolyn M. Rodgers.
Thinking about Diana Sands.
For My Brother-in-Law, Bill Morgan.
Sarah and John--We Think of Them Together.
For Marvin Gaye.
CAN'T DO WITHOUT YOU.
I Miss the Russians.
The Half-People.
ISN'T LIFE PECULIAR?
Time To.
Daughter.
The Dream Droppers.
The Pain Taker.
TODAY IS OURS.
My One Good Nerve.
Time. Time.
Double Dutch.
Calling All Women.
Afterword.
Introduction
Introduction
The author of this book is not the same absolutely
pure and sweet woman who was Nat King Cole's
girlfriend in the film The Saint Louis Blues, or the
fresh-faced bride of Jackie Robinson in The Jackie
Robinson Story, or the long-suffering wife of Sidney
Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun. Part of her, yes, is those
women, but only part. Most women, I imagine-
and surely Ruby- are a complex of many women.
Few, perhaps, have remained as well hidden by only
one facet of their personalities as has Ruby, the
actor. Here is a Ruby Dee you may never have
suspected- the writer.
Ruby, as a writer, is unique- one of a kind-
which means she can only be compared with herself.
Nothing about her work reminds me of anybody; all
of it stands alone.
This does not mean that what she writes is esoteric,
or exclusive, or private. Her meaning, her
rhythm, and her insights are not mysterious, or
enigmatic. What she has to say is wide open, free,
immediately available to the curious. She has no
puzzles that she dares the reader to solve. What she
has to say is always public and will fit into any
imagination- but only on Ruby's terms.
She tears the world apart as a child might do,
and then, right before your eyes, she builds it back
together again. The same old world, but through
Ruby's eyes- it looks brand-new.
There is a profound simplicity in this point of
view most times, which to appreciate requires that I
become profoundly simple in my own point of view.
Reading Ruby can be disarming.
Most of us grow up as quickly as we have to,
getting further away by the day from who we were
when we were children. We shorten our sails, temper
our ambitions, and set aside our fondest expectations
in order to face the day. But Ruby reminds
us that a simpler world is only a thought away, with
the light still glowing in undiminished vigor right
in the middle of our secret mind. All we have to do
is open our eyes, turn the page, and read.
--Ossie Davis