August Night

Abstract

"I've gotten hundreds of letters from people who tell me they've read the book. They say, 'It reminds me of the shtetl I grew up in Russia,' or 'the tenement where I live in Harlem,' or 'my building in Chicago.' "This is not a documentary. I was aspiring to create a work of art." Which it is. Thus, Berea, this most Appalachian of colleges, invites this native son to receive its praise and its award. Of all his honors, Gates says as he accepts, "none is more important than this because it recognizes the complexity of my identity. "Thank you for honoring me as a fellow Appalachian." So, you think about Gates, and, most of all, where he's from. Those Colored People shall live forever in your heart. You think of them, and you know the depth of what he feels: "I'm a mountaineer." August Night Crickets plead the dark, call come what may love and fare-thee-well. Sun has fatted moon's jowls, and moon, particle and wave, glances down on this sliver of cosmos. Moon drifts up like a great gold note through the swaybacked staff of phone lines, slow crescendo building, finale of summer's green cacophony. Wayward comets could terminate all this. In my lost mind your voice would be last, voice I hear now softly chatting on the phone. No galloping horsemen. Just clouds, like skeins of silk fan-dancing with moonlight, that old earthly tease, nibbling at our ears that nights will be coming sooner. Come out, I call. Sit with me. We could doze until cool morning. We could die happy here, swinging so slow on this ancient porch swing, our cells mingling with the sound of the last car passing. —Mark DeFoe ...