The Morning Porch

April 16, 2017 by Dave Bonta

Against dark clouds, the white blossoms of shadbush massed at the woods’ edge. A vole breaks cover in the yard: a gray streak.

August 22, 2025
Cool and clearing. Dew drips from the porch roof onto the orange jewelweed, which this morning for the first time receives no visits from a hummingbird.
August 22, 2024
Clear, cold, and still. A hummingbird finds the one wild bergamot blossom hiding next to the porch and circles its purple mop-head, tonguing a dozen tubes.
August 22, 2023
A gray squirrel with a nearly white tail scampering up the road draws my attention to the white snakeroot—banks of it just coming into bloom.
August 22, 2022
Overcast with a shimmer of light rain. A red-eyed vireo still calls at the woods’ edge. The thud of a black walnut onto a roof.
August 22, 2021
A few minutes after moonset, and the ground fog is still aglow. A screech owl’s monotone trill.