“The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world so black as thy hair.”

“Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.And the message of the yew tree is blackness--blackness and silence.”

“Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fineThat all the world will be in love with night...”

“The night sky lies so sprent with stars that there is scarcely space of black at all and they fall all night in bitter arcs and it is so that their numbers are no less.”

“I have fallen a long way. Clouds are floweringBlue and mystical over the face of the starsInside the church, the saints will all be blue,Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence.”

“No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women... When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.”