"Let your mothers hear you laugh," she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on andcould not help smiling.

　　Then "Let the grown men come," she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among theringing trees.

　　"Let your wives and your children see you dance," she told them, and groundlife shuddered undertheir feet.

　　Finally she called the women to her. "Cry," she told them. "For the living and the dead. Just cry."And without covering their eyes the women let loose.

　　It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up.

　　Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed,children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping forbreath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart.

　　She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them theywere the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure.

　　She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if theycould not see it, they would not have it.

　　"Here," she said, "in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on barefeet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don'tlove your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back.

　　Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind,chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touchothers with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either.

　　You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they willsee it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream fromit they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give youleavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking abouthere. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support;shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, theydo not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke itand hold it up. And all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them.

　　The dark, dark liver — love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyesor feet.

　　More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize." Saying no more, she stoodup then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to say while the othersopened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony wasperfect enough for their deeply loved flesh.

　　Sethe wanted to be there now. At the least to listen to the spaces that the long-ago singing had leftbehind. At the most to get a clue from her husband's dead mother as to what she should do with hersword and shield now, dear Jesus, now nine years after Baby Suggs, holy, proved herself a liar,dismissed her great heart and lay in the keeping-room bed roused once in a while by a craving forcolor and not for another thing.

　　"Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed," she said, "and broke my heartstrings too.

　　There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks." 124 shut down and put up with the venom of itsghost. No more lamp all night long, or neighbors dropping by. No low conversations after supper.

　　No watched barefoot children playing in the shoes of strangers. Baby Suggs, holy, believed shehad lied. There was no grace-imaginary or real — and no sunlit dance in a Clearing could changethat. Her faith, her love, her imagination and her great big old heart began to collapse twenty-eightdays after her daughter-in-law arrived.

　　Yet it was to the Clearing that Sethe determined to go — to pay tribute to Halle. Before the lightchanged, while it was still the green blessed place she remembered: misty with plant steam and thedecay of berries.

　　She put on a shawl and told Denver and Beloved to do likewise. All three set out late one Sundaymorning, Sethe leading, the girls trotting behind, not a soul in sight.

　　When they reached the woods it took her no time to find the path through it because big-cityrevivals were held there regularly now, complete with food-laden tables, banjos and a tent. The oldpath was a track now, but still arched over with trees dropping buckeyes onto the grass below.

　　There was nothing to be done other than what she had done, butSethe blamed herself for Baby Suggs' collapse. However many times Baby denied it, Sethe knewthe grief at 124 started when she jumped down off............