A Lot Of Black People

It Is Sheer Good Fortune To Miss Somebody Long Before They Leave You.

Listening To The Doves In Alfred, Georgia, And Having Neither The Right Nor The Permission To Enjoy It Because In That Place Mist, Doves, Sunlight, Copper Dirt, Moon-everything Belonged To The Men Who Had The Guns. . . . So You Protected Yourself And Loved Small. . . . A Woman, A Child, A Brother-a Big Love Like That Would Split You Wide Open In Alfred, Georgia. . . . To Get To A Place Where You Could Love Anything You Chose-not To Need Permission For Desire-well Now, That Was Freedom

And I Am All The Things I Have Ever Loved: Scuppernong Wine, Cool Baptisms In Silent Water, Dream Books And Number Playing.

Perhaps That's What All Human Relationships Boiled Down To: Would You Save My Life? Or Would You Take It?

There's A Contract That I Make Between Myself, The Author, And The Reader. I Have To Figure Out How To Give The Reader Certain Powers Of Recognition, Or His Own Knowledge, His Own Feelings, But I Provide Them, So We're Working Together.