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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

The Morning Porch
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April 19, 2026 by Dave Bonta

Breezy and cold. The tuilp poplars wear their new, pale green leaves like robes of feathers, all in motion under the gray sky. I catch a glimpse of accipiter wings, hear the kak-kak-kak call of a Cooper’s hawk.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags Cooper's hawk, tulip tree, wind
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On This Day

  • October 6, 2025
    Crystal-clear. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the top of the tallest tree in the yard as sunrise reddens the western ridge.
  • October 6, 2024
    Clear and cold, with more sky showing through the ridgetop trees. A raucous assembly of crows gives way to ravens—their resonant croaks.
  • October 6, 2023
    Heavily overcast—what the weather app calls “light rain”—with a crow yelling in the distance and a yellow-bellied sapsucker mewing like a kitten.
  • October 6, 2022
    Another woods-edge maple has gone red. Bouncing bet still blooms beside the porch, four months on.
  • October 6, 2021
    Overcast at dawn. The silence is broken by the periodic splats of black walnuts. A barred owl’s single, round note.

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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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