smallstones 31

Clouds obscure the hills
below which we laid you
Sudden tears on my windscreen
and a faint rainbow

smallstone 30

delicate birds buffeted
above the motorway
unaware of my journey

smallstones 29

Battered blue camper-van flower-painted,
 in the High Street,
like the memory-scent of patchouli oil,
whispers of other ways

snallstones 28

Flat grey Monday
In the hedgerows hints
of smiling spring 

smallstones 27

In the park five snowmen
still stand sentinel
in the wet grass, reminding
me of the stone circles
of my childhood
landscape.

I am glad the memory-
stones of those years
hold no terrors
for me

smallstones 26 - 'six word Saturday'

Fickle sunshine warms my shoulders
Promises...

smallstone 25

What shall I build with
the pile of dry stones that is
my heart today?

A keep-out wall along my boundaries?

A monument to the folly
of thinking anything good?

Or a 'broch' - a round tower,
to hold fast what is most precious
against the black night storm
Until the fresh blue dawn?

smallstones 24

A longer walk today has resulted in a longer than usual stone:

More time today,  and the earth frozen helps me decide to rediscover the way over the hill.

Scrambling like a schoolboy over the fence, I negotiate the brambles and we mount the first slope to reach the field.
No human foot has passed this way since the snowfall; tracks of deer, fox, hare and rabbits criss-cross a spiral-dance in the midnight's white.
Rounding the corner we meet a set of boottracks, coming from the regular path, and decide to follow them - though they go one way only which is slightly worrying!
Musing on Scott and his Polar exploits we trudge on up into the ice-whiteness.

You disappear after a group of hares who have the temerity to sit in the middle of the field - all my calling and your training is wasted in the face of instinct; hunter and hunted are alike to my eyes, black specks diminishing against the dazzling white distance, until you wheel around and chunter back across the chest-deep snow to loll, grinning at my feet.
Oh  Braveheart, small happy huntress!

We reach the woods. A flurry of soft grey feathers and a smudge of red in the snow remind me not all escape their pursuers. You remind a couple of bemused labradors whose woods these are; but I have promises to keep and we turn for home.

Retracing our steps over the hill, wearier now, I wonder if tomorrow someone will mark our way over the hill, or whether a fresh fall of snow overnight will obliterate all our small stories

smallstones 23

Innocently at first, they drift
 like feathers earthwards,
 smiling at our
naivety

smallstones 22

Suddenly sunshine
and the gloomy grey landscape of my driving
is transformed, briefly,
into the sparkling winter wonderland
they would have me believe..

smallstones 21

Dog stands astonished
at the door,
viewing the pristine, white, new
world

smallstones 20

Quiet house and silent
snow falling beyond my window.
Left alone to nurse my cold,
I grind good coffee, fire up the breadmaker
And contemplate the tired vegetables
in the fridge.

Soup

smallstones 19

Candlelight on crisp old linen
Two oranges in a white china bowl
Ease my soul

smallstones 18

So this is me..

Today I have:
Not much snow
A warm, dry house
Food in the fridge
Money in the bank

A loving partner
A lovely son
Health... strength
And a dog

Yet I feel AWFUL
A black cloud has sat on my shoulder all day
(Is that ok?)

smallstones 17

Fingers of gold filtering through the branches
lightly caress the ice-white twigs with flame
A blessing

smallstones 16

By chance
the five power lines are in a row,
 as a stave against the sky
And the birds black perching,
 notes about to fly

smallstones 15

Ode to my Breadmaker

None but you
Greet me with such scented warmth,
Returning cold, tired and hungry
From the bleak, mud-clinging midwinter
 streets...

smallstones 14

Inky-black sky
Ice-white fields
Only the halo-cast of the yellow streetlight
Warms my early-morning ride
Today

day 13

Black, smoky scent of Lapsang hits me
as I open the cupboard.
Bought, on a whim because 'we used to like it...'
I find I cannot drink it now
Alive or dead!

smallstones 12

A small stone for odd-sock day

Way back when, I mixed two pairs of toe-socks -
Ten different-coloured toes to wiggle,
From my seat on the floor,
At the sombre-looking boys in the bible-class

And so today I wonder
Have they all forgotten
me, or is there
a vicar somewhere who tomorrow
will think of me and
smile as he hides his odd socks beneath his cassock...

smallstones 11

He lines them up along the giftshop floor
Identical blue and red plastic boats from a bucket
And ponders for a moment before:
'That one's mine'
 he chooses.

Returning to uni at the weekend
Stones from the beach on Christmas Day
Lined up, emptied from my pocket:
'That one's mine'
 he chooses.

10 January 2013

Mindful of our older limbs
We'll ease back into dance today.

Joint effort

9 January 2013

Taken in by the sun streaming through my windows this morning
 I 'travelled forth without my cloak'.

In the sharp, blue breeze
Dog in her fur coat turned
to me and laughed.

8 January 2013

Snatch of conversation on the car radio, caught my attention
'I write so that I do not sleepwalk my way through my life'

Is that why I feel SO alive, SO awake this week
And tingle
right down to my fingertips?

7 January 2013

In the silent hour
My new pashmina across my knees in a patch of sunlight.
Riot of fuschia, orange, turquoise, yellow, indigo

And grey, because I'm an unassuming sort of person
Really

Sunday 6 January 2013

Foggy morning
Across the country we are packing
cars to return all our sons and daughters.

Cases, coats, backpacks...
we slip our hearts in somewhere
unnoticed

And try to keep our hopes and dreams back,
not to over-burden them

5 January 2013

Birds chirruping as I hopped on my bike
This mild, almost spring-like early morning.
Sun-up streaked the sky like Manderley alight.

Crisper tonight as I set-off wearily home
Stars looking down
And a frostier catch in the air

4 January 2013

This morning I used your scissors.
 Not long ago you said to me, 'Do you remember these? My father gave them to me when I was a young man. "Look after these" he said "and they'll last you a lifetime" And  they have'
Of course I remember them. When we were kids, even if the kitchen scissors were blunt and Mum's sewing pair had mysteriously disappeared, we weren't allowed to raid your drawer for them.
" Look after these" he said, "and they'll last you a lifetime"And they did.

3 January 2013

Early morning sky. Iridescent blue and gold between the silver-grey clouds. On the motorway below we scurry as ants, unheeding.

2 January 2013

 I stop to listen and am aware there is no silence. In the misty dusk a plane droning overhead, the ever-present traffic and a dog barking in the distance. The phone rings..

1 January 2013

The clock struck midnight
 - on cue for once -
 and I raised a silent thought to you..