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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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June 2, 2022 by Dave Bonta

Overcast and cool. A red-bellied woodpecker lands on a rotten maple, witters softly and turns her head, listening for the telltale stirrings of breakfast.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags red maple, red-bellied woodpecker
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On This Day

  • April 4, 2025
    A damp and gloomy sunrise. Juncos twitter in the tops of black birches. A cowbird’s liquid note.
  • April 4, 2024
    Thick fog brightening in the east. Over the roar of the creek, a phoebe’s small, inexhaustible engine.
  • April 4, 2022
    Bare branches mellowing the sun’s blaze. Two crows fly into the woods and one flies out. There are eight million stories in the naked forest.
  • April 4, 2021
    Just enough upper-atmosphere haze to soften the sun from glare to glow. Today the hepaticas will open—I’m sure of it.
  • April 4, 2020
    Overcast and still. The gobbling of a wild turkey up in the field echoes off the ridge—a startling thing to hear once, let alone twice.

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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