July2009 – The Morning Porch

7/31/2009

Dave Bonta July 31, 2009

A house wren ascends a stepladder in the steady rain. With a sudden crack, the cherry tree beside the porch sheds a dead branch.

7/30/2009

Dave Bonta July 30, 2009 1

Glory be to God for punctuation: the fawn’s spots glowing in the gloom, drifting insect-motes, garlic in the yard, a ten-second rain.

7/29/2009

Dave Bonta July 29, 2009

Two years later, the branch still dangles upside-down above the forest floor. A hummingbird pauses over a tansy and taps it with her bill.

7/28/2009

Dave Bonta July 28, 2009

Scattered bird calls at dawn give the impression of a distant chorus, the way trees on a savanna blend into a false forest a half mile away.

7/27/2009

Dave Bonta July 27, 2009

A chipmunk’s steady drip. How many years have I been sitting here? I remember each stage in the lichen’s conquest of the springhouse roof.

7/26/2009

Dave Bonta July 26, 2009

The jesters’ caps on the topheading garlic have begun to split, revealing dense clusters of miniature selves. A raven’s mechanical laughter.

7/25/2009

Dave Bonta July 25, 2009

The misty sunrise puts me in a Hallmark mood: Roses are brown,/ violets, long dead./ This coffee is bitter/ and goes straight to my head.

7/24/2009

Dave Bonta July 24, 2009

Soapwort, self-heal, mullein, Rudbeckia, butterfly weed: my garden exemplifies the messiness of any organization dominated by volunteers.

7/23/2009

Dave Bonta July 23, 2009

Come hummingbird and bring some glitter to this damp gray morning, buzz around the bergamot, pizzazz at the beebalm’s one bedraggled bloom.

7/22/2009

Dave Bonta July 22, 2009

Gray and misty. A common yellowthroat keeps caroling back to a Carolina wren, until I have trouble remembering which “witchedy” is which.

7/21/2009

Dave Bonta July 21, 2009

The tansy heads beside the porch have grown eyes: clear beads at the center of each dense sun. A faint haze of rain thickens into pelt.

7/20/2009

Dave Bonta July 20, 2009

A bluebird warbles in the darkness. Eyelids heavy with hours of missing sleep, I squint into the spreading stain of light.

7/19/2009

Dave Bonta July 19, 2009

A morning cold as autumn. At intervals, at the woods’ edge, a red-tailed hawk, orange light, the song of a wood thrush. Here and gone.

7/18/2009

Dave Bonta July 18, 2009

Half-burp, half-grunt, this utterance of a mother deer to her playful fawns. Twin leaves flutter to the ground like wings of a green bird.

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

July 2009