12/19/2023

Dave Bonta December 19, 2023 2

Well below freezing, with a half-inch of snow on the ground and a wind that keeps turning the pages of my book. The sun appears for a second or two through a gray eyelid of cloud.

2 Comments

Rosemary Nissen-Wade
4 months ago Permalink

You very seldom hear from me, but I savour all your Morning posts in my Inbox, reading each one twice, letting it sink in, and sometimes looking up the unfamiliar flora and fauna you mention (unknown in Australia). Mostly I love how vividly – yet so briefly – your words recreate your experience for us, and the sheer poetry of them.

I wish you a happy festive season and excellent new year!
1. Dave Bonta
  4 months ago Permalink
  
  Thanks so much! I’m glad the blog is so useful to you. Keep on keepin’ on. Happy New Year!

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12/19/2023

April 28, 2023
Gray skies at sunrise beginning to tap with fingers of rain on this leaf and that—their first real shower. The avian chorus gains a soft…
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April 28, 2022
Five degrees below freezing. The lilac leaves are already big enough to show their backs to the wind. Four white narcissuses bob and sway.
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April 28, 2021
Hazy sun. The first catbird pops out of a barberry bush, improvising wildly. An ant traverses my collar.
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April 28, 2020
Mid-morning, and the sun looks almost as if it might come out. A turkey gobbles right below the other house, puffing out his chest feathers.
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April 28, 2019
The catbird is back, improvising lines of its spring-long solo in a cold drizzle. The edge of the woods is an impressionist’s soft blur.
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April 28, 2018
Sun warms the porch; a rising buzz of flies. Each spicebush around the farm is yellowing up on its own schedule, bud to fuzz to…
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April 28, 2017
‪The bud-burst woods is a backlit canvas of pointillist green. A pileated woodpecker hops down a log, her scarlet crest flashing as she taps.‬
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April 28, 2016
Cold drizzle. A brown thrasher improvises at the woods’ edge, and I spot the first tent caterpillar web—a tiny white flag in a wild cherry.
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April 28, 2015
Sky bluer than a bruise. A small salticid spider suns itself on my sweater. The first carpenter bee makes a slow inspection of the porch.
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April 28, 2014
On the myrtle flowers, nothing but native bees. The sun fades. A black-throated green warbler calls, switching between its two buzzy songs.

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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

12/19/2023

2 Comments