In Beloved, Toni Morrison writes, “There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship’s, smooths and contains the rocker.” Women know. We know. Like some kind of gnarled up fist clawing through black earth, clawing at the light, primal, reaching at the light. We sway, we know. I have been so wrong. I was so wrong. I know. Maizie, “child of light; pearl.” Tyler Perry cast perfectly when having Loretta Devine play lady in green in the brilliant, most perfect book For Colored Girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by the inimitable Ntozake Shange: “somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff / & i was standin / there/ lookin at myself/ the whole time / & it wasn’t a spirit took my stuff/ waz a man whose / ego walked round like Rodan’s shadow/ was a man faster / n my innocence/ waz a lover/ i made too much / room for/ almost run off wit alla my stuff/”. You have to stop and say what is it
