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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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Friday June 24, 2022

Dave Bonta June 24, 2022 0

Overcast and cool. Two deer run into the woods as another snorts alarm up in the field. Another hummingbird buzzes me, ruby gorget ablaze.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged deer, ruby-throated hummingbird

Thursday June 23, 2022

Dave Bonta June 23, 2022 0

Fog and mizzle. The usual doe and fawn graze in the springhouse meadow, their ears swivelling above the sodden vegetation.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged deer, fog, rain

Wednesday June 22, 2022

Dave Bonta June 22, 2022 0

Warm and humid. A hummingbird interrupts my writing, hovering in front of my face, then zipping up to where a feeder once hung.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged ruby-throated hummingbird

Tuesday June 21, 2022

Dave Bonta June 21, 2022 0

One gray squirrel shadows another, nose to tail, down the gray driveway. Mid-morning thunder. A patter of rain.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged gray squirrel, rain, thunderstorms

Monday June 20, 2022

Dave Bonta June 20, 2022 0

A deer grazes a few feet away; I can hear blades of grass tearing. The sun almost breaks through a thin spot in the clouds.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, deer

Sunday June 19, 2022

Dave Bonta June 19, 2022 0

A catbird looks for worms in the herb garden. The first bindweed trumpets blare their silent music into a cloudless sky.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged bindweed, catbird

Saturday June 18, 2022

Dave Bonta June 18, 2022 0

Windy and cool. The pale undersides of leaves turning in unison like shoals of fish. A robin and a tanager trading off.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged American robin, clouds, scarlet tanager, wind

Friday June 17, 2022

Dave Bonta June 17, 2022 0

Wind has blown all the humidity out to sea. The forest is astir with its comings and goings, until I can barely remain seated.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged wind

Thursday June 16, 2022

Dave Bonta June 16, 2022 0

Hazy and humid. The sun in the crown of the big dead maple. A hen turkey putting like a slow motor, summoning her chicks.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged red maple, sunrise, wild turkey

Wednesday June 15, 2022

Dave Bonta June 15, 2022 0

The sun clears the trees sooner than seems possible, and the gnatcatcher’s extreme excitement is not a good sign. A sapsucker calls.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged blue-gray gnatcatcher, yellow-bellied sapsucker

Tuesday June 14, 2022

Dave Bonta June 14, 2022 0

Rain thickens into downpour, but a very small moth continues to fly back and forth. The evening primroses remain half closed.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged evening primroses, moths, rain

Monday June 13, 2022

Dave Bonta June 13, 2022 0

An odor from my childhood: the humid oak forest of my grandparents’ South Jersey yard. A chipmunk dashes under my chair.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged chipmunks

Sunday June 12, 2022

Dave Bonta June 12, 2022 0

When the clouds move off, an orbweaver’s web appears in the corner of a porch balustrade, shimmering as it pulses in the breeze.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged clouds, spiderwebs

Saturday June 11, 2022

Dave Bonta June 11, 2022 0

Writing on the porch for a while, I am confronted, every time I look up, by three bracken fronds in my yard that have already turned yellow, like needlessly complex skeletons of fish.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged bracken

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On this date

    June 25, 2021

    Shadows lose their sharp edges as thin, high clouds move in. Where the coyote chorus sang last night, now only the distant howls of children. …

    June 25, 2020

    A goldfinch lands on a hummingbird feeder and looks all around for seeds. The butterfly known as a red-spotted purple rests on a folding chair. …

    June 25, 2016

    When the neighbors' rooster finally stops crowing, the incessant singing of the red-eyed vireo seems as hushed as the murmur of a stream. …

    June 25, 2015

    Weak sunlight: a milkiness in the sky like the film that forms over the eyes of the dead. A lone fawn runs bleating through the forest. …

    June 25, 2012

    Cool and clearing. Three deer chase through the meadow, coats sleek with dew, bounding high to glimpse each other through the tall weeds. …

    June 25, 2011

    Spots of red in the garden: old leaves on the evening primroses, new leaves on the witch hazel, which seems to be having a prolonged spring. …

    June 25, 2010

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

    June 25, 2009

    Beside the springhouse, the twittering zoom of a hummingbird's courtship dive: from sunlight into cattail shadows and back. Tanager song. …

    June 25, 2008

    A squirrel is making a nest in a black locust with small branches it bites off a little higher up, plundering the roof to build the floor. …

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Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

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