photo friday: yellow

We haven't gotten out much this week (no surprise there) so we shot yellow photos indoors. The rock in the center photo I found on the Cape last summer, lying wet and buttery on the shore. It glowed bright yellow that morning, although here it seems just palely so. And the last photo is a cheat, in that I took it long ago at Wave Hill. (So long ago that Wave Hill has done away with those yellow waste bins since.) But I liked it in combination with the other two, so I made a grand exception for myself. I put up the rest of the yellow photos on flickr. And now, next week's photo Friday theme: silver

So since I didn't post a poem this Wednesday, I'll do so now, with my yellow photos.


*  *  *

T H E   C L A S P

She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,
we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,
I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his
face, again, and when I had her wrist
in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for a couple
of seconds, to make an impression on her,
to hurt her, our beloved firstborn, I even almost
savored the stinging sensation of the squeezing, the
expression, into her, of my anger,
"Never, never again," the righteous
chant accompanying the clasp. It happened very
fast--grab, crush, crush,
crush, release--and at the first extra
force, she swung her head, as if checking
who this was, and looked at me,
and saw me--yes, this was her mom,
her mom was doing this. Her dark,
deeply open eyes took me
in, she knew me, in the shock of the moment
she learned me. This was her mother, one of the
two whom she most loved, the two
who loved her most, near the source of love
was this.

--Sharon Olds, The Unswept Room, 2003