The Morning Porch

March 15, 2010 by Dave Bonta

The last few feet of the tulip poplar’s lowest branch is yellow, the portion that had been stuck in the snow—debarked by hungry mice.

December 20, 2024
Fine snow slowing to a stop by sunrise and resuming 45 minutes later. It’s quiet enough to hear what the creek is saying both before…
December 20, 2023
Clear as a bell and cold as a well, notwithstanding which the brown mountain is beginning to show through its thin blanket of snow.
December 20, 2021
Power outage at -9C. Moonlight gives way to dawnlight with the purring of a generator. It lugs down and I know my mother must be…
December 20, 2020
It’s snowing. A squirrel carrying a walnut leaps from limb to limb, trailed by a cascade of powder, and disappears into a hollow oak.
December 20, 2019
Sunny and still. The thermometer needle inches up toward 0°C. A sudden thump: a squirrel on an oak limb dislodging a large piece of ice.