My World Did Not Shrink Because I

It's Always Seemed To Me That Black People's Grace Has Been With What They Do With Language. In Lorrain, Ohio, When I Was A Child, I Went To School With And Heard The Stories Of Mexicans, Italians, And Greeks, And I Listened. I Remember Their Language, And A Lot Of It Is Marvelous. But When I Think Of Things My Mother Or Father Or Aunts Used To Say, It Seems The Most Absolutely Striking Thing In The World.

She Learned The Intricacy Of Loneliness: The Horror Of Color, The Roar Of Soundlessness And The Menace Of Familiar Objects Lying Still.

Sunk In The Grass Of An Empty Lot On A Spring Saturday, I Split The Stems Of Milkweed And Thought About Ants And Peach Pits And Death And Where The World Went When I Closed My Eyes.

My First-born. All I Can Remember Of Her Is How She Loved The Burned Bottom Of Bread. Can You Beat That? Eight Children And That's All I Remember.

A Coward With A Gun Is The Most Dangerous Person In The World