The Morning Porch

July 12, 2009 by Dave Bonta

High, deliberate notes of a blue-headed vireo: April revisited. A slow floodwater mosquito dies between the heels of my palms.

July 4, 2025
Clear and cool at sunrise. In the holiday-morning silence, a worm-eating warbler’s dry rattle in the woods accompanies the catbird singing in the yard and field sparrows in the meadow. A crow. The rumble of a jet.
July 4, 2024
Overcast and very humid. The big dial thermometer behind me on the wall is buzzing loudly. A minute later, a mud dauber wasp emerges.
July 4, 2023
Cool and humid—enough to muffle almost all valley noise. The sun goes back in. A carpenter bee sizes up the rafters.
July 4, 2022
Cold and clear. The maternal clucks of a hen turkey. A nearly adult rabbit hops onto the porch and regards me with alarm.
July 4, 2021
Catbird and tanager trading licks. For half a minute, a vagrant sunbeam sets one of the two mullein stalks aglow.