The Morning Porch

March 23, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Cloudless and still. As the thermometer needle inches past freezing, the first bluebird of spring warbles once up by the barn.

November 3, 2025
Sunrise delayed for a few minutes by a low bank of clouds. A gray squirrel emerges from its nest high in a black cherry and dashes down the newly exposed trunk. A robin adds a few tut-tuts to the chorus of white-throated sparrows.
November 3, 2024
The sun rises an hour earlier, heralded by the usual motley assortment of sparrows, wrens and corvids. The stratosphere breaks out into a rash of clouds.
November 3, 2023
On a cloudless, quiet mid-morning after a heavy frost, the ground remains white only in the shadows. A single orange leaf falls from the tall tulip poplar, spiraling slowly down into the dead goldenrods.
November 3, 2022
Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck.
November 3, 2021
First frost, and the thinnest small boat of a moon riding low on the horizon with the bright darkness of its cargo.