The Morning Porch

June 29, 2016 by Dave Bonta

On the underside of a porch railing, a hornet gathers a mouthful of wood. A small yellow leaf caught in a spiderweb twirls in the wind.

December 25, 2024
Half an hour before dawn, the deep Christmas silence is broken by the bugling of a Canada goose, flying alone under the low clouds.
December 25, 2023
Heavily overcast, with nothing to distinguish the sunrise from any other moment, soft and gray as old felt in the nearly complete absence of human…
December 25, 2022
A fresh skin of snow on top of the crust and the deepest day-time silence of the year. I listen to the quiet tapping of…
December 25, 2021
Little is audible over the drumming of the rain but a train horn—and of course the Carolina wren, sounding as insistently joyous as ever.
December 25, 2020
A bitter wind salted with snow. I spot an orange ornament on a lilac branch: a jelly ear fungus, too pretty to eat, sporting a…