Facing It by Yusef Komunyakaa

In this poem you i can really sense that the poet is very much connected and attached to this memorial more than others my be. It's like the memorial is a great part of him, almost like half of him. While standing there and looking at the memorial he is telling himself he is not going to cry but cant help fact that his eyes are very much clouded with tears. He obviously cant believe all the pain and memories that's rushing through his body. "I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke", seems like he feels that his soul is half dead when reading the names off the wall. He's is picturing how one may have died and how they may have felt during their time of dead. But what i am most confused about is "Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky", what exactly does he mean by those few lines?