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Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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7/18/2010

Dave Bonta July 18, 2010

A tiger swallowtail is laying eggs on the lilac and black cherry, dabbing each leaf with the tip of her abdomen, wings fighting the breeze.

Posted in Plummer's Hollow
Tagged black cherry, lilac, tiger swallowtail butterfly
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On This Day

  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2022
    Late in rising, I’m grateful to the oaks for still holding leaves—I don’t need sunglasses. My brother texts: Savannah sparrows in the field!
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2021
    Fog. A squirrel is peeling ribbons of bark from the branches of the big tulip tree. And all these years I’ve been blaming porcupines!
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2020
    Five minutes after I check the weather app to verify it’s going to stay cloudy, the sun comes out. The damp forest glistens like a…
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2018
    Two tulip poplar leaves vibrate in a private wind: chickadees. The western ridge turns from blood-red to orange to yellow—autumn in reverse.
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2017
    High winds after a soaking rain. The fallen walnuts in the driveway have all turned black, soggy hulls sagging like bodies in a bog.
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2016
    Gray in the west, yellow in the east, blue overhead. A tiny sharp-shinned hawk lands in a yard tree and only one squirrel bothers to…
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2015
    A titmouse scolds something hidden among blood-red barberries. The dead stiltgrass twitches with a second life like hair on a corpse.
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2014
    The woods and fields are brown now, but the large lilac is still a wall of yellowed green, like faded posters for a long-gone fair.
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2013
    Juncos forage in the meadow, softly twittering. The dull booms of distant gunshots like great lead spikes being driven into the earth.
  • 7/18/2010
    October 30, 2012
    Calm. Sandy’s center must be close. The top half of the dead elm tree has blown down, breaking the back of the old dog statue.

Go all the way back to 2008...

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.

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Detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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