The Morning Porch

February 20, 2020 by Dave Bonta

Palefaced sky with its one glowing orifice. The woodpeckers are busy with surgeries, removing delicious infestations from limb after limb.

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.