"She fills her time. In schools, playgrounds, other people's beds. In pursuit of knowledge, grubs, and, she thinks, life. Her loss remains hidden--over time a fine thick moss covers her skin. She does not speak of it. She does not speak of it. She does not gather branches to braid into a nest. She moves. Emigrated, lone travel, the zoologist would have recorded. Time passes. The longing for tribe surfaces--unmistakable. To create if not to find. She cannot shake it off. She remembers the jungle. The contours of wildness. The skills are deep within her. Buried so long, she fears they may have atrophied. Distant treks with her dark-pelted mother. With a solid urgency they may emerge but she must also give herself to the struggle. She belongs in these hills. And she knows this choice is irrevocable and she will never be the same.
She is the the woman who has reclaimed her grandmother's land.
She is white. Black. Female. Lover. Beloved. Daughter. Traveler. Friend. scholar. Terrorist. Farmer."

"To see that all in the school memorized the 'Daffodils' poem of William Wordsworth, 'spoken with as little accent as possible; here as elsewhere, the use of pidgin is to be severely discouraged.' The manual also contained a pullout drawing of a daffodil, which the pupils were 'encouraged to examine' as they recited the verse. . . . Probably there were a million children who could recite 'Daffodils,' and a million who had never actually seen the flower, only the drawing, and so did not know why the poet had been stunned."