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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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April 13, 2019 by Dave Bonta

Two spicebushes side by side, one still bare, the other in full yellow fuzz. Up in the woods, the soft song of the first blue-headed vireo.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-headed vireo, spicebush
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On This Day

  • October 29, 2025
    Clouds gather in the east, glowing brightly as they smother the sun. A west-bound freight rumbles through the gap. Bits of walnut shell rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast.
  • October 29, 2024
    With no inversion layer, the early-morning traffic noise keeps its distance, like the worn-down moon cradling its heart of darkness. My rumbling stomach is the loudest thing.
  • October 29, 2023
    Dead stillness giving way to rain at dawn, in the glowing absence of the full moon.
  • October 29, 2022
    Pale columns of sky all along the ridge. Frost as white as my breath. A rising tide of chirps and trills as sunrise draws near.
  • October 29, 2021
    On a dark morning, fall colors that seemed bland yesterday are bright embers. Behind the still-green lilac, a deer’s pale legs.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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