Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Laurence Musgrove: America Windows
Chagall’s bicentennial glass
thanked in blue our country
near fifty years ago in panels
glowing here in Gallery 144,
a long, dark, recessed room
in Chicago’s Institute of Art.
Spread across three windows
and six blue pages, he raised
in joy the freedoms of music,
art, words, drama, and dance
above a jagged city, people
in pain, asleep in their beds.
But look in the middle glass!
A dreamer awakens, holds up
her pen like Liberty, writes
in moonlight page after page,
sails on a ship, bird in a tree,
songs to a yellow sun shining.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Laurence Musgrove
Laurence Musgrove is a Professor of English and Modern Languages at Angelo State University in Texas.
~~~
Image: America Windows (Art Institute of Chicago)
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) made America Windows to celebrate the US Bicentennial and presented them as a gift to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977. The windows merge symbols of US history, the Chicago skyline, and the arts; read from left to right, the panels represent music, painting, literature, architecture, theater, and dance. Best known as a painter, Chagall had been working in stained glass for several decades by the 1970s. He was drawn to the medium as a way to explore intense color on a monumental scale. Working with stained-glass maker Charles Marq, Chagall executed 86 windows across Europe, Israel, and the United States.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Beautiful poem–
“A dreamer awakens, holds up
her pen like Liberty, writes
in moonlight page after page”
LikeLike
It is a beautiful poem. It is difficult to write patriotic poems in these times….
>
LikeLike
I know Chagall mostly from pictures in books, but the blue and the yellow and the bird.
LikeLike
Lovelovelove Chagall–lovely tribute.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isn’t it?
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely!
LikeLiked by 1 person
But look in the middle glass!
A dreamer awakens, holds up
her pen like Liberty, writes
in moonlight page after page—
A beautiful homage to Marc Chagall & to Poetry…
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love this short ekphrastic poem!
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
I saw those windows around 1990, spending a long amount of time gazing in wonder and awe. Then wrote a poem about gazing in wonder and awe. Oh that blue of Chagall covered my psyche with hope. But I never got far into the details, as Laurence Musgrove does. His is a more remarkable vision, and he brings out the underlying intentions of Chagall, and ties them to us now. The tender flow of his poem gives Chagall his due. Thanks for this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well-said, Jim. I feel the same way. It’s difficult to write a poem about a piece of art and still create something that can stand independently.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
And if I may add: I would not have known about those windows — all that blue, all that beauty — without Musgrove’s poem and VP!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Likewise
LikeLiked by 1 person
I re-wrote my own poem inspired by those windows, re-inspired by the Laurence Musgrove. My new title is With a Deep Blue Togetherness
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Michael!!
Laurence
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a fine poem, Laurence. Please spread the link widely.
All best, M.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person