The Morning Porch

January 7, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Deep cold. Two chickadees invade the porch, fluttering noisily above my head. A downy woodpecker excavates breakfast from a resonant tree.

November 29, 2024
Snow flurries at dawn, the ground more light than dark. A screech owl trills softly up on the ridge as the phone warms my pocket,…
November 29, 2023
Bitter cold—and the silence that comes with it. I can hear a squirrel’s claws on bark halfway up the ridge. A raven croaks twice.
November 29, 2022
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.
November 29, 2021
A scurf of fresh snow. Crows getting told off by a raven. Bright patches in the sky—which holds the sun?
November 29, 2020
Clear and very still. The soft twittering of sparrows drinking from the stream, up where the sun has begun to melt off the heavy frost.