The Morning Porch

December 16, 2010 by Dave Bonta

I pause at the door, coffee in hand: six juncos decorate the dead cherry, fat, motionless. A pileated woodpecker cackles at the wood’s edge.

December 31, 2024
Red at dawn and again at sunrise, in case old sailors harbor any doubts about the forecast. A cold breeze gets up my nose, and…
December 31, 2023
The cloud ceiling briefly switches to faint pastels: sunrise. One yammering nuthatch and, from down in the hollow, a screech owl’s soft trill.
December 31, 2022
A mottled white sky with crows to the north and ravens croaking off to the south. The snowpack is soft and granular, absorbing sound.
December 31, 2020
Overcast with the temperature right at freezing and a faint new dusting of snow. Crows and a raven trade insults up on the ridge.
December 31, 2018
Dawn. A Carolina wren drops like a ninja from its roost in the old hornets’ nest. The sky between the ridgetop trees turns to blood.