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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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Month: July 2010

July 3, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A small yellow flower lures me down off the porch to find a new species for the yard: fringed loosestrife. Sounds like a biker-chick brawl.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fringed loosestrife
July 2, 2010 by Dave Bonta

In the deer-ravaged rosebush in the middle of the yard, I spot a bald-faced hornet’s nest, its dark opening fixed on the half-dead cherry.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags bald-faced hornet, cherry tree, multiflora rose
July 1, 2010 by Dave Bonta

My mind drifts. At what precise angle of sun, I wonder, does the light lose its magic? I glance over and meet a deer’s unreadable eyes.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags white-tailed deer 1 Comment
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On This Day

  • October 28, 2025
    Heavy frost in the yard. A few, faint clouds disappear after sunrise, as squirrels climb high into the wine-red crowns of oaks.
  • October 28, 2024
    Red dawn spreading like a wine spill from a small patch of burgundy near the moon, which I watch with head held still to see it inch from twig to twig. A white-throated sparrow is the first to sing.
  • October 28, 2023
    In the dawn light, the tulip poplars glow a deep orange. It’s unseasonably warm. A spring peeper calls at the edge of the woods.
  • October 28, 2022
    Cold and mostly overcast, but the rising sun strikes my face a full hour earlier due to overnight thinning of the leaves.
  • October 28, 2021
    Mercury rises just as the stars begin to fade. A jet flies under it. A lone goose flies over it. I look away and lose it in the dawn sky.

See all...

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.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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