MY FRIEND MARY STONE FROM OXFORD MISSISSIPPI

We know we ought to be enemies,

her voice perhaps,

thirty three years off the Delta and

still caked in mud or

my hair perhaps,

bushed for the warrior women of Dahomey,

we know we ought to be enemies, only

Oh Mr. Faulkner

to prevail is such an awe full responsibility

to “have a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and

endurance”

is an awe full responsibility but

we know we have to try it and

we are both trying to try it

we

red as the clay hills and blacker than loam

friends.