The Morning Porch

March 23, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Cold and overcast after a night of rain. The creek is a full chorus. A crow alights in the big tulip tree, breaks off a twig and carries it away.

March 23, 2025
Clear, cold, and quiet. The rising moon gleams like a scimitar as it passes behind the big tulip tree, and emerges five minutes later as…
March 23, 2024
Rain and fog. The birds call one at a time, as if auditioning. A sodden squirrel, grayer than gray, trots across the gray gravel road.
March 23, 2023
Fog and scattered showers. The last few woodcock peents overlap with phoebes—two of them already, trying to out-sing each other.
March 23, 2022
Ten-thirty and the promised rain finally begins to whisper in the dry leaves—a mountain’s worth of hush drowning out all distant engines.
March 23, 2021
The last patch of snow is sinking into the earth. A titmouse flits from branch to branch up a walnut sapling, whistling softly to himself.