The Morning Porch

April 2, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Foggy and cool. The distant lowing of a cow. In the currant bushes straddling the stream, a house finch burbles.

April 2, 2025
Gray sky with a smudge of sun, as bright as the half-out forsythia against the woods. A woodpecker and his echo. The rumble of freight.
April 2, 2024
Rain. Every ditch runs with whitewater. Behind the bright forsythia, a gray wall of fog swallows the trees. Nevertheless, a wren.
April 2, 2022
Clouds that looked dark before sunrise are mottled with blue-gray and yellow. Woodpecker blast beats. Wrenish riffs.
April 2, 2021
Bitter wind. Up in the woods, sun glints off an old jar the frost heaved up. When I go to fetch it, ice colonnades crumble…
April 2, 2020
Birds keep landing on the empty feeder, like kids in a home with an unpaid cable bill staring at the TV. The wind pages through…