bee moss stones

  An early bee alights on a packet of tobacco outside the pub.

I leave the path on The Common and walk across sparse grass and moss which is springy under foot. Just to be walking on such a surface on a brisk, fine day is enough. Enough for what? Enough to sing about.

Dave Bonta, poet and poetry editor, writes on The Small Stones or River of Stones idea, which is to be found on a blog called Walking Our Way Home, in praise of brevity. His own Morning Porch observations (a limit of 140  characters) have been made regularly on a daily basis over several years have fulfilled many of the Small Stone objectives (ie to notice something properly every day and write it down). I believe that I have been doing the same sort of thing for the last five years, while Clare Grant, from whom I copied her idea of Three Beautiful Things to be noted daily, has been doing it for at least six years. "Bad writing," says Dave, "happens when decent writers are unwilling to let go of any felicitous expression." Few who aspire to write well will disagree with those words and may share a general inclination towards what is brief and yet complete in itself.