The Morning Porch

February 20, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Cloudless and still. Sun gleams on the laurel under the trees. I hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel road from a hundred yards away.

November 5, 2025
A mackerel sky slowly clearing off by mid-morning. A Carolina wren trills in the distance. The slightest of breezes makes the tulip tree’s remaining leaves tremble.
November 5, 2024
Up on the ridgetop to watch the sunrise, seven distinct layers of red in the smog over State College, itself hidden by another wooded ridge. A jay wakes up and screams like a Hollywood eagle.
November 5, 2023
Overcast sunrise for the return to standard time. The restless footsteps of a buck below the house, carrying his rack of bare branches into the woods.
November 5, 2022
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
November 5, 2021
A lone crow like a town crier repeating the same bit of news: how the rising sun, newly naked, is ablaze beneath the crowns of the oaks.