An Old Photo

excerpted from "For an album"; Adrienne Rich (1987) ... Our story is of moments when even slow motion moved too fast for the shutter of the camera: words that blew our lives apart, like so, eyes that cut and caught each other... ...our story is how still we stood, how fast." That still fresh old photograph of you astride a spotted pony, bare feet dangling as limply as your torn dress: the background was a high veranda, cool green trimmed with gingerbread. A small boy sat the animal with you -- two solemn and handsome children upon a well-fed pony, photographed by an itinerant in the thirties -- the time frozen as long as the picture or our fading memories of it may last. Some say the boy, our brother, did little in his forty-six years; but now, we see his boy's eyes, soft, liquid, serious, sad, no hint of smile about them. We weep his loss. And you, sister: alert, protective, girl's face set to fend off the world -- cast so early in your role as the family glue holding us all together.