Dawn coming in over the fields br of darkness takes me by surprise br and I look up from my solitary road br pleased not to be alone, the birds br now choiring from the orange groves br huddling to the low hills. But sorry br that this night has ended, a night br in which you spoke of how little love br we seemed to have known and all of it br going from one of us to the other. br You could tell the words took me br by surprise, as they often will, and you br grew shy and held me away for a while, br your eyes enormous in the darkness, br almost as large as your hunger br to see and be seen over and over. br br 30 years ago I heard a woman sing br of the motherless child sometimes br she felt like. In a white dress br this black woman with a gardenia br in her hair leaned on the piano br and stared out into the breathing darkness br of unknown men and women needing br her songs. There were those among br us who cried, those who rejoiced br that she was back before us for a time, br a time not to be much longer, for br the voice was going and the habits br slowly becoming all there was of her. br br And I believe that night she cared br for the purity of the songs and not br much else. Oh, she still saw br the slow gathering of that red dusk br that hovered over her cities, and no br doubt dawns like this one caught br her on the roads from job to job, br but the words she'd lived by were br drained of mystery as this sky br is now, and there was no more "Easy br Living" and she was "Miss Brown" to br no one and no one was her "Lover Man." br The only songs that mattered were wordless br like those rising in confusion from br the trees or wind-songs that waken br the grass that slept a century, that br waken me to how far we've come.