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Stripes at the door
Edda stepped into a striped morning.
Stripes crossed the path. Stripes crossed the grass.
Her yellow shoes stood between two dark stripes.
She looked down at her feet.
'You have changed your clothes,' she told the garden.
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The fence
The fence had gaps between its boards.
Light slipped through the gaps.
The boards kept narrow pieces of shade.
Edda put one hand into a bright piece, then into a dark one.
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A little piece of shade
Edda crouched beside a stripe and rolled up her sleeve.
Could she pick up a little piece of shade?
She tried two fingers.
Her fingers came up empty. The stripe stayed on the brick.
'You are rather good at staying put,' she said.
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Something to wear
She fetched her blue scarf.
On the path it wore dark bars.
Edda lifted it around her shoulders.
Up there it was only blue.
The stripes had stayed behind.
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The long scarf
She spread the scarf along the path.
It became a very long stripy creature.
Its fringe was a tail.
Edda gave it a name, then changed her mind.
It looked like several names.
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A bend in the creature
She bent one end around a flowerpot.
The stripes went on crossing it.
The creature had a corner now.
Edda sat beside the lilac to consider what sort of creature could do that.
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A cloud passed
The garden grew soft and gray.
The stripes vanished.
The scarf was simply a scarf, bent around a pot.
Edda looked up.
A cloud was taking its time.
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Back again
A bright edge crossed the grass.
The stripes returned, one beside another.
Edda clapped once.
The garden had remembered its pattern.
Her creature had remembered its tail.
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After a while
She sat on the bench to hum a tune.
When the tune ran out, she looked down.
A stripe that had crossed the pot now missed it.
The whole pattern had moved a little.
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Following
Edda slid the scarf after the stripes.
Then she stopped.
The scarf could stay where she put it.
The afternoon had somewhere else to go.
She watched instead.
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For tomorrow
She folded the scarf on the bench.
The path went on wearing stripes without it.
Tomorrow, perhaps, she would look earlier.
Perhaps the stripes would be waiting on a different brick.
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Evening clothes
By evening, the little garden was mostly shade.
Edda took her scarf inside.
Her shoes were still yellow.
At the door she looked back.
'Goodnight, whichever creature you are now.'
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