The Morning Porch

March 29, 2016 by Dave Bonta

It’s cold. Small groups of leaves scurry this way and that. The machine-gun rattle of a downy woodpecker on an especially hard hollow limb.

December 24, 2024
A fresh half-inch of snow turns the woods’ edge into calligraphy. Then an inversion layer brings traffic noise, a shimmer of freezing drizzle, the tut-tutting…
December 24, 2023
A few degrees above freezing, heavily overcast, and dead quiet apart from the spring’s low gurgle. A bluebird sings two notes and lapses back into…
December 24, 2022
-2F/-20C. Even under two hats and a beard, the windward side of my face turns numb. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: bleak…
December 24, 2021
Moonlight fades but the driveway glows even whiter: a new quarter-inch of snow. The sky is clear. Treetop goldfinches start to chatter.
December 24, 2020
White sky and white ground meet in a blur of fog. Above the drumming of rain on the roof, a white-throated sparrow’s minor-key song.