How? Why? It was like a flute song
forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This
singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world
was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and
caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters
that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now
they emerged and quested about her consciousness.
She was stretched on her back
beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto. chant of the visiting bees, the gold
of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it
all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom;
the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic
shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and
frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold
a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and
languid.
Example #2 Chapter 5
So Joe Starks and his cigar took the
center of the floor.
“Ah thanks you all for yo’ kind welcome and
for extendin’ tuh me de right hand uh fellowship. Ah kin see dat dis town is
full uh union and love. Ah means tuh put mah hands tuh de plow heah, and strain
every nerve tuh make dis our town de metropolis uh de state. So maybe Ah better
tell yuh in case you don’t know dat if we expect tuh move on, us got tuh
incorporate lak every other town. Us got tuh incorporate, and us got tuh have
uh mayor, if things is tuh be done and done right. Ah welcome you all on behalf
uh me and mah wife tuh dis store and tuh de other things tuh come. Amen.”
Tony led the loud hand-clapping and
was out in the center of the floor when it stopped.
Example #3
“What she doin’ coming back here in
dem overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on?— Where’s dat blue satin dress
she left here in?— Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her?—
What dat ole forty year ole ’oman doin’ wid her hair swingin’ down her back lak
some young gal?— Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid?—
Thought she was going to marry?— Where he left her?— What he done wid all her
money?— Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain’t even got no hairs— why
she don’t stay in her class?—”
When she got to where they were she
turned her face on the bander log and spoke. They scrambled a noisy “good
evenin’ ” and left their mouths setting open and their ears full of hope. Her
speech was pleasant enough, but she kept walking straight on to her gate. The
porch couldn’t talk for looking.
The men noticed her firm buttocks
like she had grapefruits in her hip pockets; the great rope of black hair
swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume; then her
pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt. They, the men, were
saving with the mind what they lost with the eye. The women took the faded
shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance. It was a weapon
against her strength and if it turned out of no significance, still it was a
hope that she might fall to their level some day.
Example #4 Chapter 8
“Dis sittin’ in de rulin’ chair is
been hard on Jody,” she muttered out loud. She was full of pity for the first
time in years. Jody had been hard on her and others, but life had mis-handled
him too. Poor Joe! Maybe if she had known some other way to try, she might have
made his face different. But what that other way could be, she had no idea. She
thought back and forth about what had happened in the making of a voice out of
a man. Then thought about herself. Years ago, she had told her girl self to
wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had
remembered. Perhaps she’d better look. She went over to the dresser and looked
hard ather skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had
taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her
plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there. She took careful
stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again. Then she
starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see,
and opened up the window and cried, “Come heah people! Jody is dead. Mah
husband is gone from me.”
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