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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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July 17, 2023 by Dave Bonta

The best way to summon a hummingbird, it seems, is with another hummingbird: as soon as one appears, there’s another to fight with it. A deer sneezes behind the springhouse.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags deer, ruby-throated hummingbird, springhouse
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On This Day

  • January 7, 2025
    Bitter cold with a wind. The happy sounds of juncos coming down to drink from the spring’s thin trickle. Overhead, a faint wash of pink.
  • January 7, 2024
    Gray above, white below: a snowbird hops atop five inches of fresh snow, noshing on goldenrod, snakeroot, and stiltgrass seeds, leaving lines of little arrows…
  • January 7, 2023
    Overcast and quiet, with a fresh​ dusting of snow. A squirrel loses its nerve and backs off from a death-defying leap.
  • January 7, 2021
    Cloudy and cold. The sound of crows trying to call up a mob. A squirrel perched on a high branch scratches behind its ear with…
  • January 7, 2020
    Snow. I unfocus my gaze and the flakes become threads, runnels, roots. I remember a dream in which my beard had grown down to the…

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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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