Painting

a bright sunny butter-yellow for
the kitchen, then, and
an apple-red for the
reading room

she counts the paint pots off
in her head, two, four, six,
imagining prising their lids off to
reveal the thickcream of
colors stirred with a
ruler, spread with roller,
daubed with brush, to
create that distinct
palette, the warmth and
cool reflecting back through
all the seasons as they pass
(as they will pass)

from the white hoar-frost of
winter to the new-green of
spring, the gold-red of
fall, the parched brown, too,
of summer lawns, new-mowed, as

the children call, each to
each, she listens to their
voices, seeking to single out
her own