The Morning Porch

December 22, 2025 by Dave Bonta

Clear and cold. Two red squirrels chase around the bole of the big tulip tree, chittering madly. Threadbare as it is, the snow cover still glitters in all the colors of the rainbow.

May 27, 2025
Overcast and cool. As the wood thrush fades in the distance, the brown thrasher parodies his song. Waxwings whistle in the treetops. The sun almost comes out.
May 27, 2024
Dawn: a blurry moon just above the trees losing its glow. The wood thrush’s ethereal song gives way to a red-eyed vireo sounding like a wind-up bird, going at twice normal speed.
May 27, 2023
Another clear, cold morning with little dew. Goldfinches gad about in the tops of the locusts, seemingly oblivious to other birds’ territorial obsessions.
May 27, 2022
A lull between showers; the avian chorus swells. Each recumbent lily-of-the-valley leaf cradles a collection of raindrops.
May 27, 2021
It’s so clear I can see the tiniest specks of aerial flotsam drifting past the sun. A cuckoo switches to his most plaintive call.

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