How does Paule Marshall use imagery in Praisesong for the Widow?

Imagery:

"Music to usher Jay in the door. Freed of the high heels her body always felt restored to its proper axis. And the hardwood floor which Jay had rescued from layers of oxblood-colored paint when they first moved in and stained earth brown, the floor reverberating with "Cottontail" and "Lester Leaps In" would be like a rich nurturing ground from which she had sprung and to which she could always turn for sustenance."

"Jay. He went about those years like a runner in the heat of a long and punishing marathon, his every muscle tensed and straining, his body being pushed to its limits; and on his face a clenched and dogged look that was to become almost his sole expression over the years. He ran as though he had put on blinders to shut out anything around him that might prove distracting, and thus cause him, if only momentarily, to break his stride. Even things that had once been important to him, that he needed, such as the music, the old blues records that had restored him at the end of the day, found themselves abandoned on the sidelines, out of his line of vision."