The Morning Porch

September 3, 2012September 3, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A squirrel leaping between treetops miscalculates and falls 40 feet to the ground. It lies stunned for a minute, walnut still in its teeth.

April 4, 2025
A damp and gloomy sunrise. Juncos twitter in the tops of black birches. A cowbird’s liquid note.
April 4, 2024
Thick fog brightening in the east. Over the roar of the creek, a phoebe’s small, inexhaustible engine.
April 4, 2022
Bare branches mellowing the sun’s blaze. Two crows fly into the woods and one flies out. There are eight million stories in the naked forest.
April 4, 2021
Just enough upper-atmosphere haze to soften the sun from glare to glow. Today the hepaticas will open—I’m sure of it.
April 4, 2020
Overcast and still. The gobbling of a wild turkey up in the field echoes off the ridge—a startling thing to hear once, let alone twice.