MOMA (Enters, normal weary posture): What are you, goin on about your purple dress. You sure don't need your purple dress TONIGHT! Lord, it is HOT!
(Moment of silence as MOMA fans, GRANNY rocks, HANNAH stands uncertainly) Mother, you remember that purple dress you made me when I was little?
GRANNY: I remember a pretty little girl out in that yard, her purple skirttail aflyin.
MOMA: I thought I's a whirlwind in that dress.
GRANNY: My sweet little lilac.
MOMA: I liked to flip the skirttail til my drawers would show.
HANNAH: MOMA!
GRANNY: Never still one minute!
MOMA: And I still don't stop and my feet, they ache.
GRANNY (Studies MOMA as she rubs her feet): That weren't the only purple dress I ever made you.
MOMA: O, yeah. That un. That was later.
GRANNY: For your grownup self.
MOMA: I only wore that dress one time.
HANNAH: Why, Moma?
MOMA (ignoring Hannah): My, it's a hot night. Reckon it's EVER gone rain?
GRANNY: It was a pretty dress. And you was just flickerin. MOMA: Flickering?
GRANNY: From a child to a woman and back again. You was on the edge. I would just stare and stare at you. Wonderin which side you'd land on. Flickerin. Like heat lightnin. You wuz somethin in that purple dress. It was the strangest color. Like the sky of a summer's night…
MOMA: When the stars first come out.
GRANNY: You wuz all ready for the world.
MOMA: And the world, it come straight to me that night. He moved right out of them shadows…
ANGEL VOICE (singing): Purple shadows of a summer night.
MOMA: Tall, quiet man…
hands like…satin…
ANGEL VOICE (sings): Satin, he has hands like satin
Make you feel like they're made
to make you feel fine
Kisses like juice running out of a cauldron
Run down your throat and set you on fire.
GRANNY: You was on the edge. Just flickerin.
MOMA: In a flash it wuz decided. I was a woman. I didn't hardly know what hit me…a flash like…
HANNAH: Like a shooting star.
MOMA: He was there and then gone.
ANGELS: Gone. Gone.
GRANNY: A dark empty sky.
MOMA: And I was back at my Moma's again. A little girl again.
GRANNY: You wuz just a child.
MOMA: But there was a child within this child.
GRANNY: Another little shinin star soon shone.
MOMA: Little Hannah. Is she the daughter of a star? A fast-shooting, son-of-a-gun-disappearing-type star? Are you a little star?
GRANNY: A rising star. So bright.
ANGEL I: A child comes from a child.
ANGEL II: Where does the first child go?
ANGEL III: Right up into heaven.
ANGEL I: Maybe.
ANGEL II: Maybe.
ANGEL III: Who knows.
MOMA: Do I still flicker, Moma?
Do I ever still shine?
Who knows.
Who cares. There is so much to do.
HANNAH: Do you ever hear the stars asingin at night?
I do.
ANGELS: I do. I do.
MOMA: Lord child. Why don't you go in yonder and wash them dishes. That'll get them feet of yours back down to this ground. Give you a good job to do.
GRANNY: God give everbody a job but not the same job.
Give us a time.
Backwards and forwards
It's all one time.
One long string of beads.
HANNAH: A string a stars.
GRANNY & HANNAH: All shining.
MOMA: O, you two! Mother, you're as bad as she is. You could help me make this child see…
GRANNY: The child has a gift. Hannah CAN see.
MOMA: She can see herself in yonder and wash them dishes. I swear to my soul.