Jacob Lawrence Prose

Prologue: A Feeling of Conflict Washes Over Me Before, During, and After the Duel

Before:

I set my top hat down

on a rotted tree stump a few feet away from where I’m standing.

The whole wood around me is dead or dying.

Maybe I will soon join them.

The sky behind the decaying trees brightens my mood:

it is a watercolor of purple and yellow hues.

During:

We turned our backs

and walked our allotted paces away from each other.

The sun faced my left shoulder

and cast a shadow on the dirt ground.

I poised my gun and turned…

After:

The sound of the gunshot still ricochets through the arid air

as I come to terms with my wound. I clutch

my bleeding gash.

My face distorted with anger that Burr

was the one to make my blood spill and not the other way around.

The triumphant shadow of Burr and his gun burn into the ground beside me.

I hope this moment is not forgotten.

Epilogue:

I peer out of the glass frame.

Sets of other unblinking eyes like my own peer back at me.

Be careful what you wish for they say.

History repeats itself they say.

My wish was granted and history did repeat itself.

A single moment of my life is eternally preserved,

thanks to some 1900s painter trying to connect the modern world to the past.

And he does.

The turmoil brought on by segregation

in the modern world he lives in makes him think

of the words I wrote in my diary the night before the duel:

“I shall hazard much and can possibly gain nothing by the issue of this interview”

He relates to these words so much

that he chooses them as the title of  his painting.

People who view my frozen moment in time

often remark how this quote reminds them of the battles

of protesters in the past:

despite their hardest efforts,

they still might be defined by their defeat.

Artist statement: This poem was inspired by Panel 17 in Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series”. This panel is titled “I shall hazard much and can possibly gain nothing by the issue of this interview…”. I had a personal connection to this painting because the battle fought between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr took place in Weehawken, New Jersey. Not only am I from New Jersey, but my aunt also lived in Weehawken. Because of this personal connection I share with Lawrence’s work, I decided to describe the painting from Alexander Hamilton’s point of view.