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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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August 3, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Dawn. The thermometer has dropped to 50°F (10°C). Something small and dark disappears into the tall weeds beside the driveway, setting off first one, then the other Carolina wren. It never reemerges. The sun comes up.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Carolina wren, cold
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On This Day

  • September 14, 2025
    Mounds of white snakeroot in the yard glow dimly in the light of a half moon. Orion gets one leg over the ridge before he starts to fade, and the soft calls of migrant thrushes fill the trees.
  • September 14, 2024
    Distant shots from a semi-automatic: poppoppoppoppoppop. The flutter of a falling leaf. A squirrel’s footsteps on the roof.
  • September 14, 2023
    Half an hour before sunrise, the goldenrod is already aglow. Venus and Jupiter fade into a cloudless sky. Towhees begin to tweet.
  • September 14, 2021
    Fifteen minutes before sunrise, thin fog appears and disappears. A few wood thrush notes. A chestnut-sided warbler’s “Pleased to meetcha!”
  • September 14, 2018
    The dampness thickens into drizzle. Its soundtrack: the unending trill of tree crickets. The forest begins to glisten like a salamander.

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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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