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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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April 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags American crow, cardinal, dawn, phoebe, stream, winter wren
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On This Day

  • July 22, 2025
    Cool as an autumn morning, with twittering goldfinches in lieu of yellow leaves. Just inside the woods’ edge, two deer chase back and forth, pausing for breath six feet apart.
  • July 22, 2024
    Cool and still with thin clouds. On the road-bank, a gray squirrel noses about in the leaves, as if searching its memory.
  • July 22, 2023
    Cool and clear. A female hummingbird keeps hovering in front of my face and chirping, intermittently joined by two others. I am not wearing any bright colors. I’m left wondering what message I’ve failed to understand.
  • July 22, 2022
    Chimney swifts circle high overhead as the last bats head home. The sun rising through small clouds is crowned by dark spokes.
  • July 22, 2021
    Goldfinches go on chittering the entire time I sit outside, poring over a trail map. One hummingbird sphinx moth works the bergamot.

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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