Ode to Yellow Kris Spencer

Ode to Yellow After Neruda

The yellow of toast. Linguine with lemon butter sauce eaten in the sunshine is four times yellow. Minion yellow. Pikachu yellow. Simpsons yellow. The pale yellow of insect blood. The girl in the saffron dress walking home from church crosses over from the shade to avoid the boys from the estate. A yellow leaf on a cold day. The halos of marigolds and the sun, when we saw the pollen come up. Sulfurous lemon-yellow of the evening sky. Indian Yellow, made from the urine of cows. Orpiment. Tartrazine. Eye-saver yellow. Snake venom yellow. Van Gogh with mouth full of Chrome Yellow, toxic as battery acid. Vermeer Yellow. Turner Yellow Mondrian Yellow. Winifred Nicholson Yellow. Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern: monofrequency light emits yellow that reduces the viewers' spectral range. In a meadow’s haze, yellow is a buttercup held under a tan chin. As he climbs into bed with us my son says, today is a yellow lamp

Kris Spencer