I have been painting

I have been painting--not masterworks--
just chicken coops, bird houses.
A pan, a roller. Whatever paint
I can find stored in the cellar.
A blue chicken coop with eggshell trim.
A rich cream rough plywood
Purple Martin tower.
Layers of paint for my egg layers.
Layers of paint in the plastic pan.
Gathering in the sights,
the sounds of birds;
the speckled, brown eggs,
the sloughed off feathers.
At the end of the day, obsessively
peeling paint strips from the plastic
tray basin--a scurf
of cream over blue, a beauty
for discarding--the daily business
of the universe, the steady breath
of making and un-making.