The Morning Porch

November 20, 2019 by Dave Bonta

With birds, a cold and overcast day isn’t gloomy. Their bright chirps and taps. The flashes of white when slate-colored juncos take wing.

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Gray and still, except for the creek’s trickle. A squirrel dangles from a low branch of the springhouse tulip tree, trying in vain to tear…
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One degree above freezing as the tall pines fill with sun. Two crows emerge from the woods, yelling about some old deer guts that must…
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Patchy frost: the myrtle leaves that are dusted with it versus those that just have white edging. A chickadee is getting the gang together.
December 15, 2020
Cold and quiet at sunrise. I walk to the ridgetop, clutching my thermos mug. Snow lingers in dips and hollows where the sun can’t reach.
December 15, 2019
The alarm call of a Carolina wren spreads to other wrens, other birds, a growing agitation that for a second flutters even in my chest.