Skip to content

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
  • About
  • Subscribe/Follow
  • On This Day
  • Keyword index
  • Links
    • Via Negativa
    • Moving Poems
    • DaveBonta.com
    • Woodrat Photoblog
December 5, 2008 by Dave Bonta

Juncos gather on the gravel driveway, replenishing their gizzards with grit. Up and down the big maple, it’s squirrel kabuki, love and war.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags gray squirrel, juncos, white-breasted nuthatch
Previous Post
Next Post

FOLLOW VIA EMAIL

Pick up a free subscription (with options for daily and weekly digests) courtesy of WordPress.com.

Join 278 other subscribers

On This Day

  • March 17, 2025
    Gray aftermath of a strormy night. Still no phoebe or field sparrow. An icy breeze.
  • March 17, 2024
    Patches of blue. The mourning dove’s incessant cooing finally comes to an end, leaving the daffodils’ ensemble of horns to their silence.
  • March 17, 2023
    In the half-light of dawn, something approaches, rustling in the dry leaves: rain. A few minutes later, the first phoebe begins his time-worn chant.
  • March 17, 2022
    Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
  • March 17, 2021
    Another gray day. The only snow left is what the plow mounded up, the earliest dating back to before Christmas: literal snows of yesteryear.

See all...

Related book

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.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

Copyleft

Creative Commons License
All works on this site by Dave Bonta are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

© 2026 The Morning Porch • Built with GeneratePress