Melba J Boyd photo: Marie Thomas
Wavelengths Inside Sunsets on Lake Huron
In response to Deanna Sirlin’s art
by
Melba Joyce Boyd
Red brightens,
blue cools,
yellow highlights
moods defining
and contouring
colors of Black space
enveloping a planet,
oscillating within
a spectrum of
light and sight.
Violets peek
between leaves.
dandelion blooms
intervene between
blades of grass,
revolting against
human control
of green space,
illuminating
the black valence
of lambda,
reflections of
a sunset sinking
beneath the
water line of
Lake Huron as
the planet
rotates indefinitely
within time
indifferent to
man’s ignorance
as space frames
the moon refracting
rainbows while
owls perch
inside night
to hunt prey,
as we huddle
around fire,
illuminating
small spaces,
to protect our
vulnerability,
without colors
that shape
and define
life invisible
in the dark.
Red bleeds
into blue,
purple fractures
into lilac,
and green springs
into trees,
confirming our
belief in rebirth
and renewal
when yellow light
returns at sunrise
to assure and
to affirm us.
Deanna Sirlin, Hello Hello, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 60 inches
Melba Joyce Boyd is a Detroit poet, filmmaker, biographer, editor and author of nine books of poetry. Her last collection of poems, Death Dance of a Butterfly, was published in 2012, received the 2013 Library of Michigan Notable Book Award for Poetry. Her nonfiction book, Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall (2009), won the 2010 Independent Publishers Award, the 2010 Library of Michigan Notable Books Award, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award and the ForeWord Book Award for Poetry. Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press received a 2004 Honor Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her bio-critical book, Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E. W. Harper, 1825-1911 (1994) was widely reviewed and praised by literary critics and historians. She is also the author of over 100 essays on African American literature and film, and is the editor of the African American Life Series at Wayne State University Press.
Melba Joyce Boyd is a Distinguished University Professor and former Chair of the Department of African American Studies at
Wayne State University.