​ And They Arrived

  for Jacob Lawrence’s The Migrants Arrived in Great Numbers; Panel 40 of the Great Migration Series

​
​Artist:  Jacob Lawrence
b. September 7, 191, Atlantic City, New Jersey; d. June 9, 2000, Seattle, Washington
Title:  The Migrants Arrived in Great Numbers.
Date: 1941
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singing the blues
weeds
biting their shins
each step
enchantment,
each dress, pants, blouse
sketched from the
soreness of their fingertips.
And they’re arriving,
so late now,
after the rain has passed,
after they have buried
their own
and never believed
this day would come,
or that each person
would be a person,
or that each gulp of air
            escaping their bellies          
would paint the sky,
would pave the terrain,
would tell the aching to stop
or begin.
And then they arrive,
when they’re revealed                      
by God
and their sacrifice to
the earth,
which rises to meet them,
in each stride,
in each strand of expectation,
each hue of brown;
leather, flesh and hope,
seeking a new beginning;
an unknown voyage
which began,
the moment they were free to leave…
​