The Morning Porch

February 21, 2009 by Dave Bonta

A section of latticework below the porch floor has fallen off, and though it kept nothing out, I feel strangely vulnerable. A red sunrise.

September 25, 2025
Steady rain. An hour past daybreak, it begins to get dark again. The rain comes down harder. A cardinal chirps.
September 25, 2024
Dark and rainy at sunrise, the cardinal like a pilot light in the recesses of the lilac chirping back and forth with his mate.
September 25, 2023
A few minutes before sunrise, a crack followed by a crash from just inside the woods. I delude myself that I can detect the type of tree: sounds like a red maple, I’d say. So unlike the way they come into the world—miniature claws already red with autumn.
September 25, 2022
Showers give way to tentative sunlight by late morning. It’s quiet. A lone blue jay calls.
September 25, 2021
The unfamiliar clouds of my breath. A phoebe calling in the sun-drenched crown of a walnut tree, beneath that old slice of apple, the moon.