The Morning Porch

January 11, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Hard rain. Under a monochrome cloud ceiling, the colors are intense: laurel green, tree-trunk sable, dried-grass yellow, leaf-litter rust.

December 15, 2024
Gray and still, except for the creek’s trickle. A squirrel dangles from a low branch of the springhouse tulip tree, trying in vain to tear…
December 15, 2023
One degree above freezing as the tall pines fill with sun. Two crows emerge from the woods, yelling about some old deer guts that must…
December 15, 2021
Patchy frost: the myrtle leaves that are dusted with it versus those that just have white edging. A chickadee is getting the gang together.
December 15, 2020
Cold and quiet at sunrise. I walk to the ridgetop, clutching my thermos mug. Snow lingers in dips and hollows where the sun can’t reach.
December 15, 2019
The alarm call of a Carolina wren spreads to other wrens, other birds, a growing agitation that for a second flutters even in my chest.