The Morning Porch » bergamot

A hummingbird buzzes into the garden...

Dave Bonta — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:00:23 +0000

A hummingbird buzzes into the garden, and I follow her bill to the last bergamot flower’s four thin flagons. A truck clatters past.

Dave Bonta — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:18:38 +0000

Overcast and quiet. A silver-spotted skipper drinks from the bergamot, threading the thin purple tubes with its proboscis and leaning in.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 11:48:30 +0000

A pair of bindweed trumpets side-by-side. Nearby, an Oswego tea plant wrapped in webbing swarms with baby spiders no bigger than asterisks.

Dave Bonta — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:44:08 +0000

Last night’s wet snow sticks here and there—blank spaces on the wind’s map. One of the 50-odd bergamot heads still wears a toque blanche.

Dave Bonta — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 11:42:33 +0000

Three hummingbirds circle the blowsy remains of the bergamot at sunrise. One lands on a bare twig and grooms her breast feathers.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:40:11 +0000

The bergamot is beginning to open, a wash of purple spreading from inner bracts to adjacent leaves as if heralding the rise of a purple sun.

Dave Bonta — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:53:36 +0000

The first beebalm’s forked, scarlet tongues. Nearby on a still-green bergamot bud, a netwing beetle’s antennae test the sudden sunlight.

Dave Bonta — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:07:24 +0000

Come hummingbird and bring some glitter to this damp gray morning, buzz around the bergamot, pizzazz at the beebalm’s one bedraggled bloom.

Dave Bonta — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:19:52 +0000

A hummingbird checks me out before visiting the bergamot, and again afterwards. Then she zips down to the stream for the briefest of drinks.

Dave Bonta — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:15:08 +0000

A bumblebee working the bergamot clambers over a green shield bug that’s rooted to its straw, a tiny leaf swelling on a sap-filled stem.