You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t. There’re five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don’t stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.
From Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon.
Took a Morrison class while getting my English degree. One of my favorite courses, and Morrison will always be a favorite writer.
For some reason, and I’ll never know why, I smoked a joint of potent content before the first class on “Song of Solomon.” I am still a prude about this kind of behavior; something about respect, I’d suppose. Further, I hadn’t read anything the night before. When my professor started describing Milkman, and how he got his name, I LOST it and laughed so loud, then everyone else did. My reaction uncorked the tension and assisted the discussion to come. Still got an A, but it was the first and last time I smoked before a class.
RIP, Toni Morrison! America has lot one of its defining authors.
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Gorgeous
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