'Once upon a time there was an old woman. Blind. Wise.
In the version I know the wman is the daughter of slaves, black, American and lives alone in a small house outside of town. Her reputation for wisdom is without peer and question...
...One day the woman is visited by some young people who seem to be ben on disproving her clairvoyance and showing her up for the fraud they believe her to be. Their plan is simple: they enter her house and ask the one question the answer to which rides solely on her difference they regard as a profound disability: her blindness. They stand before her and one of them says, "Old wman, I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me wherther it is living or dead"
She dows onot answer and the question is repeated...
... Still she does not answer. She is blind and cannot see her visitors, let alone what is in their hands. She does not know their colour, gender or homeland, she only knows their motive.
The old woman's silence is so long the young people have trouble holding their laughter.
Finally she speaks, and her voice is soft but setern. " I don't know" she says, " I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands."
Toni Morrison.
The Nobel Lecture in Literature. 1993.