The Morning Porch

December 29, 2019 by Dave Bonta

I haven’t seen a porcupine lately, but who else could be debarking the tulip tree’s lower branches? They glow white against the rainy woods.

October 24, 2025
Heavily overcast at sunrise, signaled only by an upsurge in birdsong from dozens of white-throated sparrows, the Carolina wren, and a screech owl quavering in the pines.
October 24, 2024
Clear at dawn. A pileated woodpecker rockets silently through the thinning forest canopy, and lands on the side of an oak like the angel of death for carpenter ants, elegant black-and-white wings folding shut.
October 24, 2023
Clear and cold with a heavy inversion layer: sparrow sounds blend with beeping quarry trucks. In the dim light, all the autumn colors look like blood.
October 24, 2022
High, slow-moving reefs of cloud at sunrise. The white-throated sparrows in the meadow conclude their chittering and go their separate ways.
October 24, 2021
Four small patches of blue sky huddle together like blue sheep in a white woolen sky. The wingbeats of crows.