The Morning Porch – The view from my front porch every morning in 140 or fewer characters

Thursday April 19, 2018

Dave Bonta April 19, 2018 0

I slept in, but what have I slept into? Rain. No, snow. No, sun. The wind roaring on the wrong ridge. Church bells ringing in town.

Wednesday April 18, 2018

Dave Bonta April 18, 2018 0

Egg-white sky with one sun over medium. It’s cold. I’m reading a line about roosters crowing just as the neighbor’s rooster begins to crow.

Tuesday April 17, 2018

Dave Bonta April 17, 2018 0

Snow in the air and here and there on the ground: unseasonable seasoning. A gray squirrel bounds up the gray road, all smoke and tailpipe.

Monday April 16, 2018

Dave Bonta April 16, 2018 0

The sound of water has returned to the mountain. Trees wear dark suits of rain embroidered with lichen. In every puddle the same blank sky.

Sunday April 15, 2018

Dave Bonta April 15, 2018 0

Under the sort of sky poets call sullen, a robin’s relentless bowl of cheer. Leave it to the white-throated sparrow to add a wistful note.

Saturday April 14, 2018

Dave Bonta April 14, 2018 0

The first daffodils point their ear-trumpets toward the forest: a tom turkey’s florid declarations, a blue-headed vireo’s quiet song.

Friday April 13, 2018

Dave Bonta April 13, 2018 1

It’s warm. A blue jay cycles through its repertoire of complaints. The first paper wasp of spring lands on my shoulder with a gentle tap.

April 20, 2017
‪The rhyming couplets of a brown thrasher. A blue-headed vireo's dreamy soliloquy. When the sun comes out, raindrops glisten on every twig.‬
April 20, 2016
A gnatcatcher crosses the yard. Its flight as erratic as a butterfly's is punctuated by the briefest of pauses to ingest its eponymous prey.
April 20, 2015
A dull-gray morning full of the rattling of woodpeckers. A bluebird lands on a branch in the yard like an emissary from the weekend.
April 20, 2014
A Chinook helicopter flies low over the trees, with its twin rotors like a pair of malignant insects mating in flight, gravid with soldiers.
April 20, 2013
A few degrees above freezing. The sun's still shining when the snow begins to fall, small flakes sifting down through the flowering trees.
April 20, 2012
A half-grown rabbit emerges from the rosebush and pauses in the middle of the blue driveway to shake its head and scratch behind its ears.
April 20, 2011
Where the moon had glowed through ground fog at 4:00, now the sun glimmers. Four ruby-crowned kinglets flutter in and out of the lilac.
April 20, 2010
Sun filtered by thin cirrostratus clouds. The hawk's shadow is soft as a squirrel's tail, but it still sets off all the alarms.
April 20, 2009
Hard rain with a bit of wind. But dreariness is impossible with so many variations on yellow: spicebush, forsythia, daffodils, pussy willow.
April 20, 2008
Now that I know there are bears about, every snapping twig gets my attention. The cherry tree's pink with swollen buds. A rumble of thunder.