The Morning Porch

September 17, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Some small hawk has been calling since first light, hidden in the treetops: soft brief cries, soon joined by a chorus of its enemies.

January 17, 2025
Every morning should start this way, with enough snow fallen in the night to erase yesterday’s tracks: the proverbial clean slate. The sound of my…
January 17, 2024
Five degrees and breezy. The creek still gurgles, low and slow, with Venus through the trees flickering like a candle in the wind.
January 17, 2023
Cold rain. The last scrap of December’s snow in the yard has shrunk to the size of a handkerchief. A back-and-forth between a titmouse and…
January 17, 2022
The tail-end of a storm that brought snow, sleet, freezing rain, and snow again. The trees look like they’ve been dipped in confectioner’s sugar.
January 17, 2021
Seven cardinals—three pairs and a lone male—take turns drinking from the stream, then perch in the lilac’s bare branches, four feet apart.