The Morning Porch

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.

October 8, 2025
Early-morning rain past, a chill breeze stirs in the tulip poplar beside the springhouse, four-lobed leaves waving like jazz hands on a thousand-armed bodhisattva, some green, some yellow.
October 8, 2024
Clear and cold. The red squirrel I’ve been hearing scold finally appears, racing up a bare walnut tree just as a deer hunter drags the first kill of the season out of the woods.
October 8, 2023
Windy and cold. In the wall of leaves at the woods’ edge, the first few fragments of what will be my winter sky.
October 8, 2022
Cold, clear, and quiet. The wind has almost died. Through yellow leaves, just a bit more sky.
October 8, 2021
Fog at sunrise. A doe leads her two grown fawns to the wild apple tree—an exuberant clatter of hooves.

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