Skip to content

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
  • About
  • Subscribe/Follow
  • On This Day
  • Keyword index
  • Links
    • Via Negativa
    • Moving Poems
    • DaveBonta.com
    • Woodrat Photoblog

Month: August 2021

August 31, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Humid, overcast and cool. I study the flamboyant gestures of certain meadow plants already more than half-way dead. A fat beetle flies past.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags beetles
August 29, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Almost fall. The motherless fawn running out of the woods has lost its spots but not its cloud of flies.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer, flies
August 28, 2021 by Dave Bonta

The fog slowly lifts, except where it’s been trapped by funnel spider webs. The cardinal’s cheer seems a bit misplaced.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, fog, funnel spiders, spiderwebs
August 27, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Fog. A quiet gurgle from the stream, still digesting last night’s downpour. The only other song belongs to a vireo.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, red-eyed vireo, stream
August 26, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Ten minutes till sunrise. The gibbous moon is losing its glow like a guitar pick thrown from a stage.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags moon, sunrise
August 25, 2021 by Dave Bonta

In the dawn light, a hummingbird double-checks that I’m not a flower, hovering over my head like a wild thought.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags dawn, ruby-throated hummingbird 1 Comment
August 24, 2021 by Dave Bonta

A stratum of sunlit leaves forming in the forest understory. A cicada wakes up. Under the house, something coughs.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cicadas
August 23, 2021 by Dave Bonta

The meadow and its crickets. The full moon emerges from the clouds upside-down in every drop of dew.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags crickets, moon
August 22, 2021 by Dave Bonta

A few minutes after moonset, and the ground fog is still aglow. A screech owl’s monotone trill.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags fog, moon, screech owl 1 Comment
August 21, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Sun in the trees and a small spot of orange beside the porch: a Mexican sunflower blooming despite having twice been dinner for a groundhog.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags groundhog, sunflower, sunrise, woodchuck
August 20, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, dawn, whippoorwill, white snakeroot
August 19, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Breezy with sometime sunshine. A hummingbird’s buzz grows louder as she hovers in front of a window, bill to bill with an unexpected rival.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags ruby-throated hummingbird, wind
August 18, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags crickets, fall warblers, quarry, rain
August 17, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Sunrise hidden by clouds. Towhee and cardinal’s usual soliloquies. A mosquito sings her need into my ear.

Share on social media

  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags cardinal, clouds, mosquito, sunrise, towhee
Older posts
Page1 Page2 Page3 Next →

FOLLOW VIA EMAIL

Pick up a free subscription (with options for daily and weekly digests) courtesy of WordPress.com.

Join 278 other subscribers

On This Day

  • March 16, 2025
    Dawn arrives between showers. I think about all the cicada larvae of Brood XIV stirring under the ground, preparing for the last and most eventful…
  • March 16, 2024
    The sun finally clears the one, thin cloud above the horizon only to disappear into a thicket. The robin has taken a break, so the…
  • March 16, 2023
    Sunrise into slow-moving cirrus; the light dulls like the eyes of a dying fish. In the windless calm, the long gargle of an 18-wheeler descending…
  • March 16, 2022
    Only one, tiny patch of snow remains in view, sheltering on the north side of a laurel thicket. A cowbird’s liquid note.
  • March 16, 2021
    Under low, heavy clouds, the air is still. I listen for the patter of raindrops but all I hear is a nuthatch, some crows, a…

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)

Copyleft

Creative Commons License
All works on this site by Dave Bonta are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

© 2026 The Morning Porch • Built with GeneratePress