Day 344: Saturday

Lazy Saturdays are hard to beat, especially that utmost contented feeling they bring...

Saturday - Fleur Adcock

I am sitting on the step
drinking coffee and
smoking, listening to jazz.
The smoke separates
two scents: fresh paint in the house
behind me; in front,
buddleia.
            The neighbours cut
back our lilac tree -
it shaded their net garden.
The buddleia will
be next, no doubt; but bees and
all those butterflies
approve of our shaggy trees.

*

I am painting the front door
with such thick juicy
paint I could almost eat it.
People going past
with their shopping stare at my
bare legs and old shirt.
The door will be sea-green.
                                       Our
black cat walked across
the painted step and left a
delicate paw-trail.
I swore at her and frightened
two little girls - this
street is given to children.

The other cat is younger,
white and tabby, fat,
with a hoarse voice. In summer
she sleeps all day long
in the rosebay willow-herb,
too lazy to walk
on paint.
           Andrew is upstairs;
having discovered
quick-drying non-drip gloss, he
is old enough now
to paint all his furniture
tangerine and the
woodwork green; he is singing.

*
I am lying in the sun,
in the garden. Bees
dive on white clover beside
my ears. The sky is
Greek blue, with a vapour-trail
chalked right across it.
My transistor radio
talks about the moon.

*
I am floating in the sky.
Below me the house
crouches among its trees like
a cat in long grass.
I want to stroke its roof-ridge
but I think I can
already hear it purring.