There is a neighborhood near mine,
where the houses are all painted in pleasant pastels.

The trees are like leafless sculptures of bark,
knotted and swirled like pythons,
and fractelled from trunk to twig.
The front yards are art displays;
each gallery an eight-by-ten square of landscape.
Each is different.
One yard has just a lawn with a fountain,
the carved details inlaid with moss,
while the very next is straight out of the Jurassic,
displaying ancient palm-ferns and looming cycad trees.
Still another yard is only rock floor,
with a huge flowing piece of driftwood lain along with
a sprinkle of football-sized pine cones.

Further down, a tree is covered with white blossoms,
and the ground around it is carpeted by the little flowers.
The green-yellow leaves of a hedge
clash with the blood-rust leaves
of a Japanese maple which
clash with the deep blue-grays of a
narrow rectangular garden of stones.

And these vivid colors,
with the shapes of the yards,
make them all burst out like life-sized monuments on exhibit.
The houses are very much part of it,
squatting strangely like large, cartoonish idols.

In their faces, on squared bodies,
window grates are ornamental eyelids,
stairway entrances are limbs,
and each garage door is a shield
adorned with symbols and patterns.

That neighborhood is usually quiet.
No one is at their window. No one is in the streets.
I
just meander to and fro along the sidewalks,
pausing in front of each and every house,
drinking in the compositions.

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