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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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September 12, 2025May 20, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The snap of a gnatcatcher’s beak behind the lilac, and just beyond, a wood pewee’s melismatic drawl. The sun glimmers briefly through a hole in the clouds.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, eastern wood pewee, lilac
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On This Day

  • March 17, 2025
    Gray aftermath of a strormy night. Still no phoebe or field sparrow. An icy breeze.
  • March 17, 2024
    Patches of blue. The mourning dove’s incessant cooing finally comes to an end, leaving the daffodils’ ensemble of horns to their silence.
  • March 17, 2023
    In the half-light of dawn, something approaches, rustling in the dry leaves: rain. A few minutes later, the first phoebe begins his time-worn chant.
  • March 17, 2022
    Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
  • March 17, 2021
    Another gray day. The only snow left is what the plow mounded up, the earliest dating back to before Christmas: literal snows of yesteryear.

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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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