The Morning Porch

May 17, 2008 by Dave Bonta

The same woodpeckers and nuthatches that we heard all winter, but with flickering leaves. The same wind as yesterday, but with golden light.

October 2, 2025
Cold and still, with a wash of cirrus clearing off after sunrise. Sound is out of the east, so instead of the usual roar of interstate traffic, I hear the shrill beeping of quarry trucks reversing to be filled and the grumbling of stones.
October 2, 2024
Another dark, rainy dawn. I can’t stop thinking of my last dream before waking, in which I had died and reincarnated as a deer. I had so many legs, and everything was delicious!
October 2, 2023
Sitting by the front door to enjoy the moon, I’m startled by a rabbit running between my feet in her eagerness to graze. Five minutes later she runs back to evade a weasel loping down the road. Orion emerges from the trees.
October 2, 2022
Light rain seasoning the breeze. A squirrel perched on a swaying limb chisels open a walnut—that haunted-house sound.
October 2, 2021
Mares’ tails reddening in the east. The reedy songs of white-throated sparrows. A raven’s nasal croak.