The Old Man, like the French, believed that black was the only appropriate color to display and wear in order to show grief. I know Ma, black is the color of our hair, the color of our irides with the coming of dusk , the color of a restful night's sleep, of coal rice, of tamarind pulp, of the unbroken shell of a thousand-year egg. How can this black be the color of sorrow? Underglazed with red river clay, deep water blue, high-in-the-tree-top green, black is luminous, the color that allows us to dream.