Yet Everywhere There Are Birds

Airshaft, Nekisha Durrett & Migration Series, Jacob Lawrence

Durrett’s glasswork frets Art Deco,
each panel chattering in my mind’s ear
with Lawrence’s Migration. Not birds
but the voices of those forced to leave
have trailed me here. Loss, their timbre,
even as the artist scaffolds a bridge
between past and present for us
to walk across. Loss, loss, loss settles
in my chest and feet, its three-part
measure, each beat, insists on repeat.
In the work’s enclosure, yellow glass
filters sun. Light and Durett’s design
conspire to implicate us in her art.
Ironically in my case, I think, intensifying
my truest nature: Yellow girl
in a yellow room, I almost say aloud,
which strikes me as funny, then
quickly shifts register. In history,
as in art and this architecture,
I am undrawn. Moving on
to the installation’s upper floor,
I enter and am momentarily flooded
with relief: at last, I am eclipsed!
But how soon I am forced to see
I am now simply awash in blue,
my every hue undone by blueing
glass, this blued room casting,
defiantly, over me, its blue mood.