Tuesday 1 March 2011

Still following?

If anyone is still following, thank you, but you may have given up as my stones slow to a trickle. Fiona's and Kaspa's new writing site is where I post now, but if you aren't a member and don't plan to be I will be posting my stones on one of my wordpress blogs: http://mroby.wordpress.com/

Sunday 20 February 2011

Friday 18 February 2011

Forty fourth Stone

Like a planetary system
at street level, shine
halogen lamps in
the early morning dark.

or

From the sidewalks
halogen planets
shine through early
morning darkness.

Thursday 17 February 2011

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Forty-second Stone

The city skyline dark
still against the lightening
sky but for one tower
 its facade blazing
with the reflected light
of the unrisen sun.

Sunday 13 February 2011

Forty-first Stone

Three o'clock
in the morning
sleepless, I sit
at the computer
wrapped against
the chill in my
grandmother's
blue and white
chrysanthemum
kimono and
try to write
my way home
to sleep.

Friday 11 February 2011

Fortieth Stone

Weather forecast:
one inch of snow.
The maple outside
my window, does not
watch the Weather Channel
and has put out hundreds
of rust coloured buds,
branches reaching
for today's sunlight.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Thirty-ninth Stone

Trees freeze until
the sap bursts
with the crackle
snap of fireworks.

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Thirty-eighth Stone

Temperatures drop:
out comes the grey
woolly scarf and
on goes the kettle.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Thirty-seventh Stone

As dawn lightens
through the bare
branches of the maple
canopy, a band of
pale yellow shades into
a pewter sky streaked
with smoky cirrus and
like some beacon
in the sky, Venus
low in the southwest.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Thirty-sixth Stone

A cold, dry night--
as I turn down
the fleece blanket
my fingertips draw
lightning trails.

Thirty-fifth Stone

As temperatures rise
snow crouches
in the nooks and crannies
of tree bark.

Thursday 3 February 2011

Thirty-fourth Stone

Even on a rainy cloud
covered morning
there is a moment
when the world shifts
from dark to light.

A blink.

I stare through
the slats at the darkness
glance down at my fan
cactus, look up and
see the sticks and twigs
of the sugar maple
canopy outlined
against a lighter dark.

Even on a rainy cloud
covered morning
the shift from dark to
light lightens my spirit.

Thirty-third Stone

Sign of spring:
Land's End catalogue --
pastel colours and
beach wear.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Thirty-second Stone

Okay, I lied. I will still use this to post shorts, but I won't be regular. I am going to post over at Writing Our way Home, as well.

Outside, fog drifts
in shades of grey
and white. Inside,
bubbles bolognese
on the stove,
colouring the air red.

Monday 31 January 2011

Thirty-first Stone

Walking along the river banks
picking up small stones, I
drop some back with a clatter,
others, I skip over the water,
but some, I dip into the water
and watch their true colours emerge.
Those I place in my pocket.
I come across other stone pickers
and we share the stones
we have found and we find
friendships--swimming
the river together.

Last stone...I'll be over at Writing Our Way Home. If you haven't joined Fiona's and Kaspa's latest venture, come look. It's quite something.
Home: http://writingourwayhome.ning.com/
My page: http://writingourwayhome.ning.com/profile/MargoRoby
I'm also to be found at: http://margoroby@wordpress.cpm

Sunday 30 January 2011

Thirtieth Stone

Cars hiss past
down Peachtree
kicking up drops
from the wet
tarmac.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Twenty-ninth Stone

The leafless beech
bears hundreds of
seeds armed
against the cold
with prickly coats.

Friday 28 January 2011

Twenty-eighth Stone

I feel comfort in
the crackle of a fire
mesmerized by the dance
of flames drawn by
the chimney's draft.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Twenty-seventh Stone

A grey and white canvas:
the fog lines the middle third
still and heavy, as if gravity
pulls it earthward seeping
into corners, draped on
hillsides and houses. Clouds
fill the upper third, pregnant
with snow, as still as the fog
but skybound. Against them,
moving from earth to sky,
chimney smoke curls and
coils upwards rising unbound.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Twenty-sixth Stone

drip
 drip
  drip
    drip
     drip
     r
     i
     p


           

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Twenty-fifth Stone

Across the street
three lanterns light
the side entry to
the church's nave,
warm in the grey
twilight of a rainy
morning.

Monday 24 January 2011

Twenty-fourth Stone

A black-capped chickadee
perches on the end
of a fallen pine branch,
a silent executioner
waiting.
   

Sunday 23 January 2011

Twenty-third Stone

I love a wintry morning
with its gleaming whites,
its soft silvers, pale yellows,
and washed out blues.
Even the sunlight is diffused
by bands of grey clouds,
and the trees stand leafless
except the winter ash
with its vermilion berries.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Twenty-second Stone

Instant coffee flakes
glint like mica--
crystalline treasure--
my morning coffee,
the sun rising on
my tongue, pulls
clouds from my mind.

Friday 21 January 2011

Twenty-first Stone

Two macaws
fly in tandem
blue red blue red
wingtip to wingtip
wheeling and dipping
with the currents.

Thursday 20 January 2011

Twentieth Stone

Two miles away
on the ridgeline
six pylons spread
along the crest
blinking red
like medieval
warning beacons.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Nineteenth Stone

Facing right,
head on the white
cotton pillowcase,
I fall asleep to
the ebb and flow
of waves
on the sound machine;
when I turn to my left,
the ebb and flow
of traffic
through the open windows
continues to lull me.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Eighteenth Stone

Sunlight glances off white feathers
as the birds arrow and wheel
silver slivers slicing the blue,
like the glitter of the sun
off silver scales, as shoals
of herring arrow and wheel
silver slivers slicing the blue.


redraft thanks to ws

Monday 17 January 2011

Seventeenth Stone

Sleet has a beat:
it rattles when it hits
like the rat-a-tat of
dried beans
pouring
into a pot.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Sixteenth Stone

After the rains
come mushrooms
shouldering and
shoving through
crannies pushing
aside small stones.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Fifteenth Stone

The roads are dry
but between tall
buildings where the winter
sun never strays
the snow lies untouched.

Friday 14 January 2011

Fourteenth Stone

The sapling's
papery bark
peels in strips
like the velvet
from a stag's
antlers.

Thursday 13 January 2011

Thirteenth Stone

My mother's
birthday - eighty two.
She sits across the country
waiting for the fog to lift so she
can leave the confines of her home
and take her silver sports car from its cage
and the two of them drive wherever
the spirit takes them on the road--
old friends the car, the road
and my mother.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Twelfth Stone

A thin sheathing
of ice covers each
limb of the maple--
a glass coffin.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Eleventh Stone

Maple leaves pressed
into the pavement
by the rain
the pattern set by ice.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Tenth Stone

With a 3-5 inch
snowfall forecast,
Atlanta residents
hunker down:
flashlights
batteries
sleds and
wine
fly off
store shelves.

Ninth Stone

Huckleberry leaves
spread across the ground,
scarlet tongues,
a lilliputian forest
fire raging.






Photograph courtesy Dave Bonta

Saturday 8 January 2011

Eighth Stone

In the moment
between dark and light,
a single cirrus cloud
smudges a smoky streak
across the sky
above the ridgeline.

Friday 7 January 2011

Seventh Stone

A sliver of porcelain--
new moon riding low
over the Atlanta skyline.







Photograph courtesy of Andrew McMillan

Thursday 6 January 2011

Sixth Stone



Red-headed finches
ornament bare branches
until the wind flicks
them off their perches.





Photograph courtesy of nechemore

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Fifth Stone


From my mother's porch
I watch the sky lighten.
As the fog clears,
a cloud bank lies draped
like an ermine stole
around the shoulders
of Mount Diablo.



Photograph courtesy of Patrick Smith

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Fourth Stone

The leafless maple's limbs
a silhouetted tracerie
a complicated calligraphy
against the deep blue and
washed yellow of early dawn.

Monday 3 January 2011

Third Stone

The camellia's branches
tremble in the chilly breeze,
one flower still clinging.
Blush pink petals lie beaten
into the sodden ground
by the rain.

Sunday 2 January 2011

Second Stone


8:53 am, Sunday, 2 January, 2011 - Walnut Creek

A scarlet poinsettia rises from my mother's sink where it is soaking--a riot of flames above the water.

Saturday 1 January 2011

First Stone


9:30 am, Saturday 1 January 2011 - Atlanta

Fallen poinsettia leaves lie on the countertop, shriveled and dark like crusts of dried blood. When I pick one up it rasps against my fingertips, so light that a sudden movement from me drifts it from my hand.