How many colours populate this place?
Four russet shell-less snails assist my count.
White flowers proffer broad flat leaves
that boast greens enough for myriad gowns.
Most of the blooms host hordes of well-shelled snails,
each shell a riotous, tasteful blend of browns
between bands depicting darker shades of dawn.
The arborvitae’s hues are too complex
to count their variations on dark green.
The berry bushes burst with red and black.
The stonewall stonewalls colour, but its hues
of sand and shadow backdrop one red rose
whose perfect-flower edge descends to brown
as what was bud then bloom moves to decay.
The russet snails, like sea lions seen from planes,
seem all immobile less I really look.
One turns its head; antennae sample wind.